


Eurydice's Stepchildren

by Escalus



Series: Enemies to Peace [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Resurrection, Suicidal Thoughts, Survivor Guilt, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2018-09-08 00:22:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 59,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8822227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Escalus/pseuds/Escalus
Summary: Scott, Stiles and Isaac have been forced to leave Beacon Hills behind.   After defeating The Beast and enduring Gerard Argent's treacherous revenge, they have had to forge new lives elsewhere in the world.   Scott slowly learns to master the powers of a True Alpha, Stiles seeks to turn his raw talents into an advantage, and Isaac develops the skills to uphold the new Argent Code.   Peter Hale had escaped from the consequences of his actions and was living a rich and decadent life in Europe.   However, a mysterious and dangerous new force has kidnapped him.  The shadowy figure known only as Mother is obsessed with the werewolf's signature accomplishment: bringing himself back from the dead.     Peter's secrets will draw our heroes into a struggle against an ancient grief so powerful it might destroy the very fabric of reality.After all, who wouldn't burn the world to bring back those you loved from the lands of the dead?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own the characters of Teen Wolf. This work is a homage to that great show.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is not necessary to read the first installment of this series to understand the work, but it would certainly help.
> 
> This alternate universe diverges in Teen Wolf's episode 5x11 "The Last Chimera." It was began before Season 6, so the story line of that season will have no impact on the story.
> 
> For those uninterested in reading the first installment, here is what you must know. In the hospital confrontation scene, Scott was more badly hurt by his death in the library than the show indicated and Stiles' attack put him in a coma for six months. This had dire consequences as the events of 5B played out. Sheriff Stilinski died from the wounds the chimera gave him, Jordan Parrish sacrificed himself to save Lydia, and no one discovered that Mason Hewitt was the Last Chimera until after The Beast had been slain. Stiles spent six months in jail for the assault on Scott. The Beast murdered Rafael McCall and framed Scott for it.
> 
> While the series will employ different points of view this time, Scott is the primary character. In the first series, he developed the ability to astrally project himself to members of his pack, and he was also able, with Derek's help, to attain the full alpha shift. However, due the Darkness of the Nemeton, his form resembles that of Peter's from Season One; it's been established that he'll never be able to take the same wolf form Derek can.
> 
> In addition, Gerard Argent took advantage of the situation to feed the FBI information that framed Scott for all the 'animal attacks' in Beacon Hills, leading the Press to dub him the serial killer known as "The Beast of Beacon Hills." Scott was forced to fake his own death at the hands of the FBI in order to protect the secret of the supernatural's existence. He can't go home. 
> 
> The story picks up eight months later.

New Year’s Eve at the Hotel De Versailles in Monte Carlo embodied comfort, luxury, and, above all, refined taste. 

The management paid attention to every aesthetic principle. Outside the wide verandah windows, the city’s lights reflected themselves in the placid waters of the Mediterranean, while the sliver of a crescent moon plowed through a sea of stars. Within the room with paneled walls of the softest ecru, the dancing lights were reflected in the spotless glasses on the tables, the chandeliers that hung far above, the crystal vases holding endless supplies of daffodils, the flower of new beginnings.

This dining room did not contain a raucous holiday party; it was a place to celebrate with close friends or with new lovers, to whisper over dinner and toast the changing year together. From an alcove that could be seen but only barely, a string quartet urged quiet reflection with one of Debussy’s more gentle compositions. The wait staff made an extra effort to be unobtrusive and quiet.

At a table in a far corner of the room, someone who looked like a man sat and contemplated the dinner before him. Unlike most other people, this time of year made him prefer to be alone. He studied the meal before him: oysters, raw and shucked, nestled on a plate of ice. A tender slice of steak au poivre lounged between braised squash and asparagus. The wine was a ridiculously expensive 1928 Chateau Mouton Rothschild. 

A glass in hand, the person who looked like a man leaned back, the bow tie on his tailed tuxedo undone, and the top button freed. He was comfortable, well-fed, and pleased with the aesthetics of the room, with the skill of the staff, with the whole tableau in which he found himself. 

If this was the life that a defeated omega werewolf was doomed to endure, thought Peter Hale with a smirk, he supposed he could put up with it. He lifted the glass in a silent toast to the moon and took a mocking sip from his wine.

All his enemies were now gone. He had escaped their traps and their prisons as he had escaped their judgment. Had he been victorious? No. That did rankle a bit. However, there was plenty of compensation. 

Due to his nephew’s complete disregard for material wealth – though Peter had to admit that someone, _somewhere_ might consider such lack of materialism a virtue – he had only managed to reclaim a little more than half of the money that he had, he supposed, technically stolen from himself. Sixty-five million dollars would, however, allow him to live at the level of luxury that he desired.

Now, in the free and clear, he could go anywhere he wanted. Since escaping Eichen House, he had indeed gone anywhere his mood had taken him: New York, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, Hong Kong. He arrived at the best times of the year and left without regret when he became even the slightest bit bored. 

All in all, he was now taking his life slowly and leisurely. He had pursued the various means of pleasure, both legal and illegal, in all the different cultures he had visited and found that he could make a life cataloging the various experiences a man of means and few morals could explore. The world lay open before him.

If he had to be honest with himself, his only real disappointment was how he lacked so much control over his own emotions. He should be more content than he was. He had won more than he had lost, and yet his losses were still what bothered him the most. He knew that this disagreeable state came from who and what he was. He had grown up in one of the oldest, most respected werewolf families in the world: the Hales of Beacon Hills. While he had, admittedly, failed to find a role that was comfortable for him in his family's pack, he had still taken pride in belonging to that pack.

After he had recovered from the mania of his first attempt at alpha status, he had found a place in Derek’s pack. It hadn’t been a particularly comfortable place, but it had been a pack. He had offered as much guidance as Derek could handle, but in the end, the boy’s insane amount of guilt and accompanying martyr complex had doomed the whole enterprise. It had been mercy, really, when he talked the boy into giving up his alpha spark to save Cora.

Peter did have regrets. He regretted the fact while he had slaughtered every single person responsible for the fire, one of them had the nerve to get back up. Kate was still on the loose somewhere, and while it was pleasurable to him that she would spend her new life constantly hounded by the Calaveras, the situation still rankled him. As long as she was being pursued, he could not go after her. The Mexican hunters wouldn’t hesitate to put multiple bullets in him as well, which was a conclusion he wanted to avoid.

He also regretted the fact that he had not had any sort of hand in the humiliation and death of Scott McCall. He had been establishing a new residence in Florida when he had read in the paper of “The Beast of Beacon Hills” and his inglorious death at the hands of the authorities. He had made discreet inquiries and found that the True Alpha had been suspected in the death of his father and the FBI had made an effort to pin most of the mysterious animal attacks in Beacon Hills on the boy. Scott had bungled an attempt to escape from the authorities and had died as a result. The irony of this should have pleased him, but it didn't. It bothered him.

And that wasn't the only thing that bothered him. While he was never Scott’s biggest fan, the truth remained that Scott had been his only beta. Peter felt offended on an instinctual level that anyone would think that they had the right to destroy something that was his with impunity. It was a disquieting feeling he couldn't shake.

Of course, he also missed the raw physical power of being an alpha and the comfort of a pack's support. Oh, he wasn’t going to let the desire for a pack limit his freedom of action or burden his life in any way, but there was no escaping the fact that he was a werewolf, and part of him would always want a pack. He understood that consciously.

What Peter really wanted and that he could never have – he knew this in his bones – was the pack he had before the fire. As much of an outlier as he had been, as much as the black sheep, the Hale Family was the only place where he really felt he belonged. That was gone past recovery.

Peter almost snarled at himself. While New Year’s Eve was a time for reflection, he was not a mewling pup. He had survived – nay, _triumphed_ – over more than any other werewolf could, and he would only grow stronger from this point.

“So enough with the melancholy. Auld Lang Syne and all that.” He lifted the wine to his lips. He would finish his meal and then stand on the balcony to herald in the New Year. With great relish, Peter sat down and finished every bit of his meal. It was exquisite. He vowed that every meal he had from then on would be this good. He deserved it. 

He had barely finished his steak and was considering desert when two people sat down opposite from him. Peter was a little concerned by this as he hadn’t sensed their approach.

Wonderful, thought Peter as he examined the pair, neo-avant garde cliched Eurotrash. Thin, pale, blonde with matching loose, silky bobs, the two visitors were most probably twins by physical type. They were the type of twins who played up their similarities, down to the unisex gray and white outfits. While they seemed to be in their early twenties, they moved and carried themselves like schoolchildren.

Peter was about to make a suitably nasty remark about not desiring any company, and even if he did, it wouldn’t be with understudies from _Village of the Damned_ , but then he realized something that caused him to reconsider his quip. Neither had a heartbeat. “I’m afraid that this table is reserved.”

“We know, Mr. Hale,” said the woman. Her accent was German, he thought, most likely Prussian. “However, it is you my brother and I have come to see.”

“Oh, is it?” Peter affected an air of nonchalance. “May I inquire as to your names? There’s no need to be rude.”

The man spoke, his voice barely inflected. “We don’t actually have names, Mr. Hale.” 

Peter didn’t think this was a particulary bad sign, but one could never be sure. He tried to remember which sort of creatures lacked both heartbeats and names. He couldn’t remember any off the top of his head, but he was both rakishly charming and a master tactician, not an encyclopedia. “I hope to God you aren’t vampires. What can I do for you two lovely … whatever it is you are.”

The woman let a long quiet sigh escape. “We’re not vampires. Vampires were once living humans who have been turned. We were never alive.”

The man continued. “We are here to arrange a meeting between you and our Mother. We can assure you that you are in no danger and all trouble and expense will be carried by us.”

“That sounds delightful,” Peter replied, “but I have a pressing engagement elsewhere. Old business to take care of, you know. My apologies.”

The twins hummed. Suddenly, Peter could see his own breath fog in the air as the temperature room dropped. 

“I’m afraid that you misunderstand,” said the woman. “We are here to make your traveling to meet with Mother as pleasant as possible.”

The man echoed in his soft voice. “We never said you had a choice about going or not.”

Peter put his napkin down with exaggerated care. He glanced around the room, gauging the damage if he tried to fight. The weird twins did not seem to exhibit the slightest concern that they wouldn't be able to force him to go. “Awwwww, _hell_.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott completes a job for the Calavera family. Scott and Stiles discuss their plans for finding a way to put the Nemeton to sleep forever.

The afternoon light slanted through the widows, turning the contents of the untouched bottle of mezcal into glowing amber. The bartender had placed that bottle strategically on a table in the middle of the room, along with a shot glass, a pitcher of cold water, and a tumbler. Given the age of the bar and the rough atmosphere, the whole scenario could have been taken out of a spaghetti western, except for the wide-screen television on the wall showing a soccer game and the air conditioning that kept the bar comfortable.

Scott could have closed his eyes and pretended he was one of the anti-heroes of _The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly_. He had watched westerns when he was younger during weekends when the weather was crappy or the allergen count was so high outside that his mother was worried about his asthma being triggered. He’d been too young then to recognize the themes of those movies; he’d just thought the idea of being a mysterious stranger eager to deal out justice was cool. 

Now, he didn’t have to pretend; the way his life was going he reasoned that he’d become the mysterious stranger. He had to laugh at the image. Ever since he had been forced to give up his identity and leave his home, he had promised himself that he’d find a way to make it mean something. There was nothing wrong with having a little fun along the way.

Unfortunately, he still also had to find a way to keep Stiles and him fed, which was why he was sitting in the bar at this time of day. He wasn’t going to touch the liquor; it would take the whole bottle for him to even feel it a little bit, and he wasn’t fond of the taste itself. He did sip at the water. The job this afternoon had two parts: an easy part and a hard part.

The easy part was to sit here and drink and maybe watch the soccer game on the television. It was essentially waiting. He was the only person in the bar at this time but the bartender. He wasn’t sure if that was on purpose or not.

The hard part, he realized, was approaching right now, much quicker than he thought it would have. He could hear one of them at least, even over the television and the air conditioning, though he was sure that they thought both would help conceal them from him. But one of the approaching hunters was so tense that his heartbeat sounded like someone left a shoe in a dryer. Scott would have had to polish off that entire bottle to miss it. 

One of the things he had been working on in the past months was sharpening his senses. To use them effectively, he knew he had to get better not only at focusing on them but also interpreting the meaning of what he sensed. Since the targets were still outside, his nose couldn’t help pinpoint them due to the cold, heavier conditioned air pushing out of the building. This left him only his hearing. He hoped that they wouldn’t be so sloppy as to get in the view of the windows. 

Concentrating, he could tell there were three in front, and one in the back. They were going to come at him from two directions, which was smart. He shifted in his chair to make sure he had his weight evenly placed. If he was going to make this a tough fight, he needed to be able to move quickly. 

The hunters timed it pretty well. Two of them burst in through the front door and a third shattered one of the front windows with the barrel of her shotgun. The fourth one must be coming in through the back door, so it would take him a few extra moments to get into the main room of the bar. The bartender immediately disappeared, dropping to the ground behind the bar; he must have been warned, or he was in on it. 

One of the other things that he had picked up during the last months was that many people assumed that when a werewolf went into battle, they had only one tactic: pick a target and put it down with strength, speed and claws. A scarred alpha in Montana had told him that a wise werewolf could put this misconception to good use. The people he was facing now were hunters, but they weren’t experienced hunters, so they had made that common assumption.

Scott picked up the table where he was sitting with both hands. The glass and the liquor fell to the ground and shattered. He charged towards the front door, using the table as a shield before him. The two hunters let loose blasts but the heavy wood absorbed most of it. The one firing from the window clipped him in the leg because she could get a better angle, which stung like a bitch, but he knew he couldn’t slow down.

He slammed the table itself into the two at the door before they could get off another shot. One of them was a smaller, wiry man who was most definitely used to just getting out of the way, and he scrambled to one side. The other, a taller, bulkier hunter tried to absorb the blow. He was a big enough man that it was probably something he could have gotten away with in school yard fights and combat with other humans. It was a really dumb idea when dealing with an alpha werewolf. The big hunter went flying back at least a dozen feet from Scott’s impact. 

Scott knew he had only moments before the hunter in the back door would get into position, and he didn’t want to get hit again with the shotguns. Dropping the table he grabbed the smaller hunter, knocking the shotgun out of his hand. In response, the hunter drew a knife. It wasn’t big enough to intimidate him. 

Keep in tight and keep moving, Chris had told him, when fighting against multiple opponents with range. If they’re any good, they’ll be careful about shooting one of their own. 

Scott kept one hand on the smaller hunter, dragging him along the wall. The hunter at the window – a woman with long brown hair – kept trying to get a good shot through the window, but she hadn’t completely cleaned out all the broken glass before taking her first shot. It wouldn’t be useful if she cut her arm open. While she stopped to smash out more glass, she took her eyes off of him, and so Scott bodily lifted up the smaller hunter and shifted to where he could grab her. 

It earned him a stab in the lower back as the first hunter he had grabbed plunged the small knife in. Scott grunt as the pain surged though him, but he pushed it to side as he grabbed the startled female hunter by the arm, pulled her through the window and then tossed her across the room, where she knocked over another table. 

With his second hand free, he grabbed the wiry hunter’s knife hand and slowly pulled the arm away from him. He shook his head at the hunter, indicating that was the last time he stabbed him. 

He heard Derek’s voice scolding him: don’t gloat in the middle of a fight.

The fourth hunter, the one coming in through the back, had taken up a position behind the bar and was ready to fire. Scott didn’t think one more hit would slow him that much, but he didn’t want to find out. He twisted the small wiry hunter around to dissuade the shot.

Scott’s eyes widened as he realized that the hunter behind the bar was going to shoot anyway. He could probably take the shot, but he didn’t know about the hunter he had grappled. Reflexively, he tossed that hunter away. The shotgun blast took him in the chest, knocking him up against the outer wall. It wasn’t a fatal wound but he slid down the wall as his lungs worked to take a breath through the blood flooding them.

“Enough!” A woman’s voice rang through the building, coming from the stairs to the second floor. 

Araya Calavera descended the stairs with her ever constant right-hand man at her side. “Severo, help our nephew up.” She chuckled. 

When Scott had had to fake his own death to keep an FBI investigation from uncovering the existence of the supernatural, Chris Argent had had the genius idea to have him assume the identity of one of Araya’s nephews who had died during the hunt for Kate. Everyone was confident that his body would never be found. Scott hated the idea with a passion, but he wasn’t in a position to object.

His new identity was Hortensio Calavera, a fact that every single one of his friends never let him forget. If their constant ribbing wasn’t bad enough, Araya herself found it incredibly, if morbidly, amusing. She never let him forget it; she talked to him like he was her actual nephew and delivered every term of endearment with a smug grin.

Severo grabbed him by his forearms and hauled him up. “I’m fine,” he explained, though his shirt and face were covered in his own blood, “though I’ll try to avoid doing that again.”

“Probably a good idea,” Severo quipped. He had a friendlier wit than Araya.

Araya scolded her neophyte hunters in blistering Spanish while he healed. When she had finished, she turned to him. “Nephew,” she cooed. “Would you like to explain to my rather poorly trained new hunters how you knew they were coming?”

Scott couldn’t really object to explaining; after all, it was what he was getting paid for. “When you’re nervous or scared, your heart rates increase. People passing by a bar might be nervous, but after a certain point, you can tell that someone is looking for trouble.”

Araya nodded. “This is why we do live exercises just like this one. Eventually you will not be as scared of the wolves.” She eyed the trainees. “Though this is the first time we had the cooperation of an alpha. You should not expect the next one to be willing to take a shotgun blast for one of you.” She shook her finger at the hunter that had come from the back. The wiry hunter who had almost been shot was scowling at that one as well. Scott suspected there would be words and maybe more exchanged later.

Scott shook his head. It was not his business. One of the things that he knew he had to get better at was focusing on one thing at a time. He couldn’t help everyone. He had to trust people to have their own best interest at heart.

“So, nephew, you are going to spoil my new hunters. If you are going to be useful in their training, you are going to need to be a little more ruthless.”

Scott scowled. “I could break an arm or two, if you want me to?”

“That won't be necessary. Think of it this way: if you teach my young hunters that an alpha will go out of the way to protect them from their mistakes, you’ll get them killed.”

“Maybe I want to get them killed,” Scott tried sounding tough. 

Araya laughed in his face. “You should not try to be macho, McCall. It ill suits you.” She gestured for him to walk with her and they went outside the bar.

“It is an interesting thing to me, Lobito, to watch you as you are now. I must admit I have a certain admiration for your self-control.” Araya began. “No one would have blamed you if you had let that man get shot.” 

Scott knew that the other people on the street in the Calavera’s home base were probably freaking out over the blood. He also knew that the local police never messed with Araya. “I would have blamed me. Why do you train with live ammunition?”

“We don’t hunt innocent prey.” Araya stated with fervent conviction. “When I send my hunters out, they are going after murderers and monsters. There is no place for mercy there. It requires a certain frame of mind; death must be a companion to them, not a surprise.” 

Scott had to admit that the Calavera hunters were a grim lot. But then again, so had been the Argents – even Allison had been more stoic once she had embraced their training.

“You on the other hand,” Araya continued. “You continue to interest me. I would have wagered that after all you’ve been through, you would be struggling with control more than you are. You’ve lost your family; you’ve lost your pack; you’ve lost your home.” She clucked her tongue. “Or, more specifically, they were taken from you. Yet I don’t sense any anger, even towards me. Wouldn’t it be easier to let the beast inside you out of its cage? To make the world pay its debt to you?” 

Scott couldn’t figure out what Araya’s goal here was. She had always pushed at him, implying that he was a monster just under the surface, while being surprised that he hadn't let the monster she imagined surface. “Violence isn’t going to get me back what I lost.”

“Nothing is going to get you back what you lost,” Araya countered. “Your self-control isn’t going to make your life now bearable.”

“No, it won’t. Getting paid will make it bearable.” He was growing tired of this conversation. “I don’t get you. It’s like you want me to be a monster.”

“You will most certainly be paid, nephew.” Araya sighed. “And perhaps I do want you to be a monster. Bloodthirsty creatures of the night are dangerous, but I know that I can deal with the mayhem they cause. You’re young, so you may not understand this, but it's always heroes that do the most damage.” She patted him on the shoulder and walked away.

Scott went on his own way, thinking about what the old hunter had said. At first, it didn’t make any sense to him, but then he thought of what Beacon Hills had endured. It could be argued that when he, Stiles, and Allison had reignited the Nemeton, they had caused more harm than good. If they had not undergone the ritual, the nogitsune would have never have been freed, the Dead Pool would never have been started, and the Dread Doctors would never have come to Beacon Hills.

It was a grim, morbid thought. How many people would be alive if they hadn’t gotten into those tubs?

Scott frowned as he stormed up the stairs to the room where they were staying. Part of him knew that he shouldn’t dwell on dark thoughts like that. If they hadn’t gone performed their ritual then their parents would be dead. It had been the only way. 

Hadn’t it? 

Scott remembered at the last moment to open the door to the rooms where they were staying softly. Stiles had been up all night working. It was only a little different than how Stiles had studied for school years ago. Scott was glad in many ways that his training consisted mostly of traveling to meet alphas who were willing to talk to him and teach them what they knew. It wasn’t as if he missed school ... actually, he did miss school. But going to an actual school would remind him of all the things he had had to leave behind. It was better this way. 

Stiles was fast asleep, balanced precariously at the table on that ridiculously uncomfortable chair. His head was tilted back and his arms hung loosely at his sides. Scott had no idea how he could sleep like that, but Stiles had always been able to fall asleep in the strangest positions.

Scott slipped his shoes off by the door and crept over to look at the table where Stiles had been working. The laptop had gone dark, but it seemed that he was working on herbs and first aid again. Stiles had quietly began studying to become an emissary. Deaton and, surprisingly, his sister Morrell had been teaching him. More specifically they had told him what to study and let Stiles put things together by himself. There was no standardized testing for an emissary, no set course of progression, so Stiles came to it, quickly and easily. His mind followed the paths that interested him, and all the siblings had to do was present the information he needed in an interesting way and Stiles would take it from there.

Stiles stirred from his sleep and then shot up. “Whut? Oh, it’s you.” He yawned, wide. “How’d it go?”

“Only got shot twice and stabbed once,” Scott remarked. “I’ve had worse. I didn’t mean to wake you up; I thought I was being quiet.”

“Scott,” Stiles laughed bitterly. “You’re covered in blood. My nose might not be as good as yours, but it can still smell fresh blood.” 

Scott looked sheepish. “Sorry.” He disappeared into the bathroom and started to clean up. He heard Stiles start tapping on his laptop. He was going to have to do laundry soon; this shirt was ruined and he only had one other that was clean.

“Money’s deposited in your account,” Stiles announced when he came out.

“You can get into my account?” Scott asked, puzzled.

“Of course.” Stiles snorted, like it was a stupid question. “It’s a good thing you finished. We were going to have to tighten our belts. Not a bad haul for a months’ work.”

Scott realized that Stiles had left the real question unanswered. He didn’t really care about the money, what made him a little happier than the mood he was in when he got back to the room was the ‘we.’ He always breathed a little easier when Stiles used that pronoun.

He flopped down on the bed. “Do we have enough to go to England?”

Stiles turned and looked over at him. “Only if we crash with Jackson, and I’d rather pull my eyeteeth out. While I think it’d be best to go to England and the source of the Celtic culture, we could afford to travel to Pennsylvania. In the Appalachians there we could find more information. Or, if we were smart, we could …”

Scott sighed from the bed. “No.”

“Scott, I don’t know why you are being so damn stubborn about this!” Stiles exclaimed. “We have not one but two extraordinarily rich families willing to bank roll our work. One such family is eventually going to be your family, as well.”

“I know that. I just don’t want to take money from Chris or Derek.” Scott spoke to the ceiling. 

“So you’ve said. Repeatedly. You also want to start find a way to put the Nemeton to sleep, but Scott …” Stiles stood up and came over to sit on the bed next to him. Physical closeness between them was not as common as it was before, so when Stiles did this, it meant something. “Scott, that’s going to take research and investigation beyond simply talking to people who are willing to talk. If that was all it took, Deaton would have found the solution long before now. This is going to require us to trace the roots of the practice wherever they might lead. This is a mystery thousands of years in the making.”

Scott could feel Stiles coming to the point, and he guessed a part of him knew that he was going to have a hard time fending off his conclusion.

You see, Stiles was hardly ever right. It might seem like he was, due to how much attention he drew to the times he was right, but he wasn’t. More often than not, he had gone in the absolute wrong direction. That wasn’t the value he had. Lydia was far more well-read and analytically brilliant. Deaton and Derek had better grasps of how the supernatural world operated. Allison had been more tactically talented and Mason had been more creative. That was not what made Stiles special.

Stiles had more raw curiosity than all of them put together. His other friends may have known more and they could apply their learning more effectively than Stiles, but no one saw the need to do it earlier. No one noticed the flaw in the pattern, the disturbance in the ether, the thing that didn’t fit, earlier than he did. It could sometimes drive him into paranoia, but it also meant that when things came down to the wire, Stiles would be there first with any and all the answers he had. 

There was a reason Scott had asked him to look into how to quiet the Nemeton. Once Stiles started trying to unravel a mystery, he wouldn’t quit. Especially if people he loved were in danger, he would never, ever quit. 

“Something like this is going to take resources, Scott. It’s going to take money – money for travel, money for bribes, money to live on while we dig through ancient libraries and groves. You can’t make enough for us to do that, especially if you won’t do …”

“I’m not going to kill people for money.” Scott answered hotly.

“Then you have to decide what is most important to you, because we can’t do what we need to with what you make now.” Stiles looked down at him. “Just tell me why you won’t accept their money.”

Scott rolled over on his side, stubbornly ending the conversation. He knew, like he had always known, that Stiles was right about this, but he didn’t want to ask Derek or Chris for money, and he knew damn well why. But he didn’t want to tell Stiles. Soon, he may not have a choice.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott and Stiles wait for Isaac's return to Mexico. They wrangle about how to pay for their explorations. Isaac returns, bearing literal gifts.

The argument still hung between them over the next few days as they waited for Isaac to return. The lack of resolution was always in the room when they were both in the same place. It got in the way of every conversation that they tried to have that wasn’t about the argument. 

It wasn’t tense; it was just awkward. 

Scott got away from it by pushing himself physically. He ran in the Mexican desert. He’d start in the early morning, waking up before Stiles did. He never left sight of the town that the Calaveras called their main base, which meant he never left the range where he could get to Stiles quickly. By the time he returned it would be near to lunch. He’d come back, shower, eat lunch and then nap the day away. That left only the evenings, where he watched crappy television shows on the crappy television.

Stiles got away from it by reading. He did not spend any time working on the problem with the Nemeton as a form of silent protest about Scott’s stubborness. It did not make much sense, as Scott put it, to answer someone being stubbornly silent by being stubbornly silent. Stiles simply rolled his eyes, pulled another book off his shelf with great dramatic effect, and started reading something else. 

The night before Isaac was due to be back, they were watching a really terrible reality cooking show. To be honest, they weren’t really watching it. Scott was lying on one bed, shoes and socks chucked off, and his half-lidded eyes were pointed in the direction of the television, but his attention was subconscious, like a moth drawn to a light bulb. Stiles was on his bed, but he was up on elbow, a book on wolf's bane horticulture open in front of him. He split his attention between the book and the television, flipping the pages back and forth. He would never learn anything that way, but that wasn't his intention.

“Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo,” Stiles began. 

Scott did not sigh. He wanted to, but he did not. He knew this was going to happen sooner or later. He waited for Stiles to go on.

“Isaac’s coming back tomorrow.” Stiles observed innocently.

“Yup,” Scott decided to play dumb. 

“And I was thinking about what we were going to do then.” Stiles said carefully. 

“I assumed we’d take him out to lunch, since he drove all the way here.” Yes. Playing dumb was the way to go.

Stiles did not resist the urge to sigh. “Okay, this is getting ridiculous. Do you or do you not want to find a solution for this? And if you say ‘For what?’ I will beat you to death with this book about wolf's bane, and I will have succeeded in giving you the most ironic werewolf death ever.” 

Scott wished he could fall asleep like this, but he could not. He knew that they were going to have to talk about it. “I thought that Pennsylvania was a good place to start. All three of us could drive up and look around those areas.”

“Half measures.” Stiles raised one finger. “If, and I mean _if_ , there were any druids among the Welsh settlers in Pennsylvania and if, and I mean once again _if_ , they actually created more Nemetons, there might be one that we could study, one that wasn’t damaged, and an Emissary there who hasn’t been contacted by Deaton or knows more than Deaton knows.” 

“And that’s the goal, right?” Scott suggested helpfully.

“Yes, that’s the goal, but you know where would help us more than Pennsylvania? Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, Normandy. Those areas have been strongholds of druidical practices since the Late Iron Age. They would be the most likely locations for Nemetons stronger than ours, and most likely have concentrations of druidic scholars and researchers.” Stiles slapped the book shut he was looking at. “Everything I’ve researched indicates that the Old World druids, due to systematic persecution, are far more secretive than druids in America.”

Stiles burst out in bitter and hysterical laughter. “Imagine it, Scott, people more frustratingly enigmatic than Deaton!”

Scott decided to try to retreat into silence again. He didn’t want to carry on this conversation.

“Oh, fuck no, you aren’t doing this to me again. Give me one good reason, any reason, why you won’t consider asking Derek or Chris for money to go to Europe and do research that will _save people’s lives_.” Stiles got up off the bed and put the book back on the shelf. He muttered under his breath. “Stubborn asshole alpha dick.”

“You know I can hear you if you mutter.” Scott pointed out.

“Then let me say it out loud. Stubborn. Asshole. Alpha. Dick. Give me a reason!”

Scott already knew that he was being stubborn. It was his turn to mutter lowly. “It’s not supposed to be fun.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes and shook his head slightly. “Come again?”

“It’s not supposed to be _fun_!” Scott said with more force. “You remember when we were growing up and we daydreamed about being spies or treasure hunters and flying away to exotic locations. We’re sitting in a rented room and we’re planning a trip to Europe to dig up ancient secrets.” 

Stiles still looked lost. 

“The only reason we are here is because of my mistakes. I can list them if you want. What right do I have to ask Derek for money? If I hadn’t been an arrogant asshole to him, none of this would have happened! What right do I have to ask Chris for money? If I hadn’t …” He bit his lip. He didn’t want to go into all the ways he had fucked up everyone’s lives. During the last eight months, as he had learned from other alphas, he had come to respect the wisdom of people who had actually lived longer lives than he had. He had also started to wonder recently if things would have been better for everyone if he had actually submitted to Derek. And if that wasn’t painful enough to think about, he didn’t want to go into the ways that Chris had lost his entire family because of him. He may not have intended to do that, but his decisions still were part of painful history for both men. “Look. I don’t want them to give me money so I can play Dora the Explorer. This isn’t supposed to be fun or easy.”

Stiles flailed in agitation. “This is a guilt thing? What am I saying? We’re talking about Scott McCall, so of course it’s a _guilt thing_.” Stiles looked like he didn’t know whether to laugh or start throwing things. “It isn’t about it being fun or easy, you dumbass. It’s about getting the job done. You know what, I’m not going to talk to you any more until Isaac gets here, and then we’ll take turns respectfully whipping the stupid out of you.”

“How do you know that Isaac will side with you?”

“Because he’s not a dumbass!” Stiles replied, angrily. He stood there steaming for a moment. “I’ll make you a deal. Tomorrow, when Isaac gets here, you’ll sit down and explain to him what you just explained to me. If he sides with you, I’ll plan our trip to Pennsylvania immediately. If he sides with me, you’ll call Chris or Derek and get the money to go to Europe. Deal?”

“Deal.” Scott realized the moment the word came out of his mouth that he didn’t need to make deals with his emissary, that he was the alpha. But he had never wanted to run his pack like that, and he wasn’t going to start now. 

“Fine. Now let’s watch this stupid cooking show where Becky Home-Ecky there has to make an omelet on a shovel.” Stiles threw himself onto the bed. He muttered to himself. “Another fucking werewolf with another fucking martyr complex.”

“I can still hear you,” Scott offered helpfully once again.

Stiles flipped him off and went back to watching the cooking show.

******

Isaac arrived back a little before eleven the next morning, as he told them he would have. He drove up in a brand-new SUV to where Scott and Stiles were standing in front of the building. 

“What the hell is it with Argents and SUVs?” Stiles bitched. “Are they under contract? What’s wrong with classic vehicles?”

Scott shrugged. “Maybe it’s easier to hide automatic weapons?” 

Isaac got out of the driver’s seat. He’d lifted a hand in greeting, but it was clear that he was trying to be smooth, because there had been some changes. He was trying to grow some form of goatee and his hair was short, shorter than Stiles’ was during freshman year.

“Dude!” Scott exclaimed. “You buzzed your head! Why’d you buzz your head?” 

Isaac smiled. “Uhm. I thought it’d make me look more mature?” He turned around so they could see the back. “I was doing a mature adult thing so I thought I should look the part. You don’t like it?”

“No, it’s just a change!” Scott didn’t like it at all. It didn’t look like Isaac; it looked like Isaac’s older douchey brother. (Scott had no idea if Camden was actually a douche or not.) There was no reason to welcome him back by criticizing his haircut, no matter how much he liked the curls. Scott wondered if you told your boyfriend stuff like that. He would have told his girlfriends.

Stiles simply had his lips pursed. He opened his mouth as if he was about to deliver a particularly scathing quip. “Nah. Too easy. You hungry?” 

Isaac shrugged. “I could eat. And I will give you your presents!” He went back to the back of the SUV and popped it open.

“Presents?” Scott and Stiles said simultaneously. They looked at each other and burst out laughing. For a moment, they felt like children again. For a moment, it felt normal, even if they were standing in a Mexican city so very far from home.

“I know Christmas was four weeks ago, but your mom was pretty bummed that you weren’t home.” Isaac explained. It had been the second Christmas he had missed; the first had been last year, when he was in a coma. “She had them all ready to go with me.” He hefted the bag. “Where to?”

They relocated to the restaurant that all three of them favored. It was not yet the lunch rush so they had a table and a relative amount of privacy. After ordering, Scott leaned back with his soda. “So, how did things go?”

Isaac wore that same smile that he had when he arrived back in the town. Instead of answering he reached into his pocket and pulled something out of it. He put a silver bullet on the table in front of him. 

Stiles whistled. “Wow. You graduated.” 

Scott reached over the table and grabbed Isaac’s hand. “I’m so glad. Chris told me it was coming up. You should be very proud. I know I am.” 

On the other hand, it might have been the strangest thing any werewolf had ever said to another. Isaac had insisted on finishing the training that Chris Argent had started him on, becoming the first ever werewolf to join the prestigious family of werewolf hunters. Scott couldn’t complain; if things were going as well as he thought they were between his mother and Chris, he might be the first werewolf to be a member of the Argent family who wouldn’t be forced to commit suicide. 

Times were changing. 

Isaac was beaming. He was obviously proud of what he had accomplished, and Scott wasn’t surprised. He had done something special and something difficult. Isaac had come so far from where he started. “I have more.” He reached out and handed another silver bullet to Scott. 

“What’s this for?” Scott accepted the bullet and turned it over in his hand, studying it. 

“You’re my alpha. You’ll always be my alpha. That is a token to remind you that you come first.” He said it as if he was embarrassed, low and quietly. It was understandable; they were in a public setting even if it was mostly deserted. He was also blushing. “I hope that didn’t sound stupid.”

“No,” Scott blushed a little. “I’ll keep it close.” 

Isaac turned to Stiles and gave him one as well. 

“Oh, you shouldn’t have; I’m not into polyamory.” Stiles may have reverted to this standard sarcasm, but he could tell he was touched. “What’s this for?”

“You’re the pack’s Emissary, right?” Isaac asked, innocently. He knew the question was not that innocent. It had never been formalized; it had been assumed. It was one of the things that Scott and Stiles no longer talked about after senior year.

Stiles looked at Isaac as if he was thinking about punching him. Then he looked at Scott, and Scott kept his face as neutral as he could. 

He wanted Stiles to say yes. He wanted him to say yes so badly it hurt. Isaac knew this, which was probably why he had ambushed Stiles with the bullet. But Scott wasn’t going to put any pressure on Stiles. Things were different, and while they had healed a great deal, there were still wounds that wouldn’t just disappear. 

Stiles hesitated for a thirty seconds, which to Scott seemed like an eternity. Finally, he took a breath and snatched the bullet from Isaac. “Duh. Of course. Someone has to keep you idiots from killing yourselves.”

Relief flooded through Scott, but he knew only Isaac could hear his heartbeat.

“Deaton suggested that I give you one. He said it would have ‘sympathy’ to me, and he said you would know what that meant. Actually, he said that you _should_ know what it meant.”

“I know what it means,” sneered Stiles. “Mostly.” 

Scott laughed out loud as their food arrived. “I’m glad that’s settled. So ….” He winked at Isaac. “Presents?”

Isaac dug into the bag he brought with him. “I already opened mine. You have three each.” He handed two larger boxes to both of them. They were carefully wrapped with bows. “Your mom insisted we keep the wrapping on.”

For a moment, they looked at the packages seeing the care with which they had been wrapped. Then they tore into them like rabid four-year-olds tree-diving at seven in the morning. Paper and ribbons flew around the restaurant, and Scott didn’t even use his claws.

“It’s a sweater,” Scott said, feeling only a little disappointed. It was a very nice sweater, dark brown and soft and fluffy and pretty expensive. 

“Oh God,” Stiles said, examining his sweater, which was the same type only in dark blue. “These are adult presents. We’re getting adult presents!” He wailed. “The doom has come.”

Scott went to take the sweater out and found a package beneath. He sniffed at it. “Stiles, there’s Christmas cookies in here, too.” 

“It’s not total adulthood. Yay!” 

“You two are such dweebs,” Isaac remarked. 

Scott stuck his tongue out at Isaac as they set the sweaters aside. Stiles made grabby hands at Isaac. “Who made you official gift giver-outer? C’mon!”

Isaac brought out another present, smaller this time. “These are from Mr. Argent and Dr. Deaton. They told me to say they hope they were useful.” 

Scott and Stiles looked at each other. “Practical. Dad Gifts.” They opened these with the same fervor of the earlier presents though. Stiles had a bag about the size of a carrying case. Inside were medical tools, carefully cushioned, including hypodermics and scalpels and sutures. There were also a collection of small vials whose symbols they had seen before among the veterinarian’s private stock. 

“He gave me a mini-Emissary kit.” Stiles said. “Dad Gift.” He rolled his eyes but leaned over to Scott. “Some of these herbs are pretty rare. This is like kind of expensive.”

Scott opened his up and found a phone with some other equipment in a carrying case. He raised his eyebrow. “I already have a phone.”

“Oh. It’s a satellite phone. That’s a solar panel charger. So you don’t have to worry about coverage.” Isaac observed. 

Stiles remarked, sotto voce: “Now you don’t have any reason not to answer the damned phone.”

Scott punched Stiles very, very lightly in the shoulder. “You know, it’s not a crime to want to have some time to yourself, once in a while, usually when you are with someone special. It’s not my fault that you always get yourself in trouble when I’m …” 

“Getting busy,” Isaac added. 

Scott blushed at that. 

“Whatever. More presents while I re-evaluate my dedication to this dumbass.” Stiles teased and waited expectantly from Isaac. 

“Last two,” Isaac announced. “These are from the pack. I’m supposed to wish you Merry Christmas as I give them to you.”

Scott got his first. He opened it up with just as much gusto as the first two. It was a framed photograph of the people back in Beacon Hills: his mother, Mr. Argent, Alan Deaton, Liam, and Lydia. 

“We know it’s not everybody, but your mom realized you’d left without any pictures of people, so they got together for the shot. It’s yours, Scott, but we’re all supposed to share it.”

Scott looked at the framed photograph. Presents were supposed to make you happy. This made him happy, but it also made him distinctly unhappy. He wiped his nose. “I … I’ll have to say thank you, somehow.”

“They know,” remarked Isaac. He took out the last one and hesitated. “Stiles, this is yours.” 

Stiles took a last look at the pack photograph, his eyes lingering on Lydia especially, before moving to his present. He tore it open and took in a deep breath; it was a framed portrait of his father. “I don’t know this picture.” 

“It was one that Melissa took during the summer before senior year.” Isaac said as softly as he could. “We realized you didn’t have a chance to take any pictures with you.” 

“Oh, hey, that’s great.” Stiles said with a cheery tone that was so obviously false. “That was really, really thoughtful of everyone.” He stood up and gathered his presents. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to take this stuff up to the room. I want to check out the herbs that Doctor Mysterio sent me.” He smiled. “And give you two lovebirds some alone time.” He scampered away, oblivious to the fact that his food hadn’t arrived yet. 

Isaac frowned. “Maybe I should have waited.” 

Scott started picking up the remains of the wrapping paper. “No, don’t blame yourself. It wouldn’t have been easy no matter when you gave it to him. He appreciates it.” At least he thought Stiles appreciated it. He would have to see later. 

Their food arrived. It was a good lunch. Scott got Stiles’ meal to go. 

“So, how are you?” Isaac asked. “Do anything fun while I was gone?”

“I got shot a bunch of times. I got stabbed once.” Scott joked. “Araya’s newbies are very … aggressive. They don’t believe that you should conserve bullets.”

“That really sounds like fun,” Isaac smirked. He had grown a little competitive about hunting families. 

“The real answer is no, I didn’t do anything fun while you were gone, except fight with Stiles – don’t worry, he’ll bring it up eventually – and wait for you to come back.” He poked his fork at his meal. He still wasn’t sure when he was sounding corny or not. 

“I missed you, too.” Isaac tossed it off like he was talking about the weather. 

“You don’t have to go anywhere right away?” 

“No,” Isaac shook his head. “You’re my priority right now. If we’re going to work on shutting down the Nemeton, as things were planned, there is no other place that I should be. Professionally.” Isaac looked over at the bar to avoid looking in Scott's eyes. “Personally, you know that I want to be wherever you are.” 

“How do you feel about a drive up to Pennsylvania?” Scott smiled. “After a day to rest and recuperate.” And making out. Plenty of making out. 

“I thought we were going to Europe?” Isaac asked seriously. “I mean, last I knew, Chris was getting the tickets ready for our trip to England?” 

Scott gritted his teeth. “Stiles is pretty damn confident. He thinks it’s stupid of me not to want to ask Chris for money.”

Isaac raised both eyebrows. “Why wouldn’t you ask Chris for money?”

Scott sighed and started his side of the story. It looked like the making out would have to wait.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in Beacon Hills, Peter Hale returns to stir things up.

Josh Diaz stared at the clock in detention. He understood on one level that time didn’t move more slowly in situations like this, and that it was an illusion your own brain created. On the other hand, he could swear that the hands on the clock were moving so slow it would be spring before he got to go home. It was maddening.

He couldn’t believe he had drawn detention during the first week of class. It was totally not his fault, though, technically, it _was_ his fault. He had gotten fidgety during third period and had tried to sneak into the boiler room to have a snack on the old fuse boxes he knew were down there. He had learned over the fall semester how to keep his charge stable so he could last through the school day, but he had gotten lazy over Winter Recess. If his charge dropped too low, he would get restless and unfocused, so he thought it would be worth the risk to sneak downstairs. 

At least he had managed to actually get some amps before he got caught by the janitor. If he hadn’t, by this time of day he would have been either completely freaking out or unable to keep his eyes open. He still didn’t understand why his body reacted different ways when he got low on charge, the same way he didn’t understand why he got so aggressive when he overcharged himself.

This wasn’t how he wanted to start the new semester. Josh found school dull and the fact that he had to repeat junior year made it even more tedious, but in the first semester he had worked hard enough and avoided trouble enough so he had gotten straight Cs. His parents were thrilled. Of course, they’d be thrilled with him simply attending school after the disaster his first attempt at junior year had been. 

If he had to admit it, he had enjoyed last semester. He had done his terribly uninteresting school work, and the nights out at the club had been totally monotonous. This was just fine with him. The year before had been far more exciting: deranged pseudo-scientists, freaky new powers, werewolves, a psycho trying to boss him around, reborn 18th century serial killers, and, oh yes, being raised from the dead. For a little while, at least, boring was _just great_.

That was the main reason why he had only met three times with Hayden and her “pack.” She explained that it wasn’t really a pack, because they weren’t actually werewolves, but she was modeling it on what she had learned about real werewolf packs. Hayden, Corey, and Noah weren’t actually friends when all of this started, but whatever they were to each other now made it easier for them to live day-to-day. Corey was still terrified of what was out there, and he was terrified of himself. Noah followed Hayden around like a puppy for some reason, and both of them admitted that it wasn’t something either of them understood. Hayden had been meeting with the veterinarian – which was all sorts of hilarious – who had tried his best to help them, but she told him that Deaton admitted that whatever the Dread Doctors had done to them was beyond his expertise. The vet had ideas, but Hayden complained that he would never simply come out and say anything directly unless he was absolutely sure he was right. 

Josh knew about that very annoying tendency; a few weeks after Scott McCall’s pack had freed them from Theo, he had gone to see the man because he was scared. Alan Deaton had come right out and said he had no idea what hybrid form the doctor’s had imposed on him. Deaton _had_ suggested that instead of taking in power only when he got fidgety, Josh start taking it in regularly. It had worked to help smooth him out.

Josh had avoided spending more time with Hayden and the others because he really wanted to have nothing more to do with any of this supernatural crap. But at the same time, he knew he couldn’t ignore it. There wasn’t anyone else in his family or circle of friends that chewed on electrical cables that he could go to when he was in trouble. But who would want to get involved in all of that craziness?

It wasn’t just that he hoped he didn’t run into any more … bad guys? He didn’t know what else to call them. He still had nightmares about the Doctors and their terrible experiments. He still remembered the fear of seeing The Beast at its full power. He remembered the strange realization that he had been following Theo not out of desire to be part of his “pack,” but because he was terrified of what Theo might do if he wasn’t. If he never met a person like that again, he would be very happy.

It just seemed to him that the ‘good guys’ didn’t have it much better. He had watched Liam Dunbar essentially sleepwalk around the high school, repeating his sophomore year like Josh had repeated his junior year. Liam was still on the lacrosse team; he played with steel-eyed and mechanical precision like an athletic robot. He didn’t hang out with anyone, even though there were plenty of people who were his friends. He avoided all the chimeras, and Josh could not blame him in the least. 

Hayden had talked about Liam with Josh during lunch one day. Liam wouldn’t be more than coldly polite to her, and she totally understood. He had betrayed his alpha to save her life, and she had turned around and reluctantly helped Theo keep him imprisoned for so long. Not only had that happened, but Liam had been released only to learn of his best friend’s death and witness the banishment of his alpha. He was trying to be a one-man pack and make up for his failures. 

Josh thought that sounded like ten tons of guilt and exactly no fun.

It did explain why Liam had been suspended in November when he beat the crap out of a classmate who had mentioned “The Beast of Beacon Hills.” The kid had been new and had been a little too curious about the story. Everyone in the school knew not to mention Scott McCall around Liam.

And to Josh, that was the cherry on top of the sundae. He had heard the story of Scott McCall, the True Alpha. McCall had tried to save everyone and he had refused to kill, and what did it get him? To everyone in the world, he had an empty grave in the cemetery and a ruined reputation. Supernaturals knew that McCall had a new life and a new name somewhere else, separated from his pack, his family and his friends. Yeah. If that was what happened to the ‘good guys,’ Josh absolutely did not want to be a hero.

Josh sighed with relief when detention was over. He scooped up his backpack and headed on out. He’d stop by the transformer station on the way home. It would be important to be calm and collected when his parents lectured him about the detention. There was no getting around it; after the six month disappearance and the creative and yet unbelievable story he had used to cover it up, they had become far more attentive. 

It helped Josh that they were actually clueless. They had no idea he wasn’t human anymore; he had managed to keep everything under control. It helped that he didn’t have the same problems that werewolves had with the full moon. Well, almost everything was under control – his parents always complained to each other why the electricity bills were so high.

Hey, sometimes he got hungry in the middle of the night.

The sun was setting by the time he got home. He pulled his ten-speed into the garage; after last year, they didn’t let him borrow the car. The lights were on, so he took a deep breath and headed in. If he was lucky, dinner would interrupt the questioning and the lecture.

“I’m home!” He called as he came in through the front door. He put his bag over by the coat rack and waited for them. It didn’t do any good to hide in his room.

No one came.

“Mom?” Josh called out. “Dad?” Their cars were in the garage, so they should be here. 

A man came out of the kitchen with a coffee mug, an aura of cologne, expensive clothes, and a smug grin. Josh had never seen him before, but he had the feeling that he should know who this was. “I’m afraid your parents are tied up at the moment, Josh. It is Josh, isn’t it?”

“Who are you?” Josh demands. He doesn’t know what to do. Maybe he should have been paying more attention when Theo tried to teach them how to fight. “Where are my parents?”

“Well, the answer to your first question is relatively simple, and I probably should answer it, as we are going to be spending a lot of time together. My name is Peter Hale.” The man flashes a charming smile. “And, as I told you, your parents are tied up. In the basement, to be specific.”

Josh felt a chill run down his spine. He thought he was out of this; he thought he was clear. “Why me?” He felt his claws slip from his fingers involuntarily; he felt the sizzle along his nerves that meant his eyes were glowing. 

Peter Hale, whoever the hell he was, took a long sip from the coffee mug and then placed it, delicately, on a coaster on an end table. He was very polite for a person who had broken into his home, hurt his parents, and was announcing his intention to kidnap him. “That simple question has a complex answer. Suffice it to say, that you need to come because we’ve both shared similar experiences. We’ve both been in the grave. I’m hoping you won’t make this too difficult.” He cocks his head to one side and morphed his face into an angular, wolf-like monstrosity. 

He was a werewolf. Josh wasn’t ready for this, and he certainly didn’t want this. By reflex, he sent a charge off in all directions; St. Elmo’s fire danced across the living room and the werewolf was thrown back a few feet. Josh wished he had learned to focus his powers better, because he was sure he just fried the television. He didn’t wait around but bolted out the front door.

He could hear the werewolf get to his feet, complaining. “The kid can do that and no one thought to tell me? Have none of you ever done a proper briefing?” Another voice answered, but Josh couldn’t hear it, because he had run too far down the street.

He got to the intersection, breathing heavily and panicked. He knew he had to keep moving, because this Peter Hale person wasn’t like McCall or Dunbar or most of the other werewolves he’d met. He was more like The Beast. He was _dangerous_. And he wasn’t alone. 

Josh kept running but he wasn’t sure where he was running to. He tried to think of the nearest people who could help him. The police were out of the question. He pulled out his cell phone only to realize that he had completely fried it when he had sent out that burst of charge at the werewolf. Great, he scolded himself, you’re a genius.

He turned down another street, and he realized the closest person who could help him was Liam Dunbar. His house was only seven blocks from his. If what Hayden said was true, Liam would feel obligated to help him.

Josh may not have wanted to be a good guy, but that didn’t meant that he didn’t appreciate that there were people who wanted to be the good guys, even if they were grumpy assholes like Dunbar.

He didn’t stop running until he stood on the Dunbar’s front doorstep. He was breathing heavily but not only from exertion. He took a few deep breaths until he could regain his composure. This was a normal, boring thing. Normal, normal, normal, he repeated to himself, like a mantra. He knocked on the door.

If this was so normal, why did he keep looking over his shoulder to see if that other werewolf had followed him with his bright blue eyes and creepy angular face? 

Dr. Geyer answered the door. “May I help you?” 

“Uh. Yeah. Hi. Could I talk to Liam?” He tried to not look like he was scared out of his mind. “I forgot my phone, or I would have called.”

“Liam is cleaning the table after dinner, but if you wouldn’t mind waiting?” Dr. Geyer opened the door to let him in. Josh froze. If he went inside, he was putting Liam’s parents in danger because there was a werewolf after him and he didn't know if this one cared about innocent bystanders. If he didn’t go inside, he was going to be alone out in the rapidly darkening dusk with Peter Hale and whoever else he had with him.

I’m not a good guy, Josh told himself. “Thanks.”

He waited nervously in the living room, offering Dr. Geyer and Mrs. Geyer a thin smile. He hoped they thought he was just weirded out by being with his friend’s parents. That was normal, right? 

Liam finished with clearing the dinner table and putting the plates in the dishwasher and came out into the living room. He had the fakest smile in the history of human existence plastered on his face. Josh wondered why his parents didn’t notice. “Hey, Josh.” It came out, not as a greeting, but as an accusation. “Josh and I are going to my room, okay?”

Josh was completely surprised when Liam _didn’t_ throw him up against the wall when they got to his bedroom. The werewolf was radiating anger and frustration that even a blind toddler could have picked up on. “What are you doing here?”

Josh didn’t play coy. “Some werewolf named Peter Hale broke into my house, tied up my parents and tried to kidnap me! I didn’t have anywhere else to go!” He held up his destroyed phone in hysterical defense. “I accidentally shorted it out.”

Liam’s face changed when he heard the name of the werewolf. There was still anger, but it was no longer directed at Josh. “We have to leave. We have to go somewhere else. He’ll follow you here!” Josh was about to protest when Liam snagged him by the shirt and pulled him out of the room. Liam was a hell of a lot stronger than he was.

“Mom? Dad? Josh and I want to go visit a friend. It’s about school.” Liam was a terrible liar, thought Josh. In the living room, his parents looked at each other. 

Dr. Geyer nodded sagaciously. “Be home by ten. It’s a school night.” 

They were out the front door as quickly as Liam could move. Josh kept up with him. “I don’t believe your parents bought that.” 

Liam shrugged but he was studying the street with his blue eyes glowing in the night. “They just want me to have friends again.” He pulled out his own phone. “We’re not friends.”

Josh wanted to respond with ‘fuck you, too’, but he couldn’t. He remembered the months where he brought Liam food while the werewolf was chained in a subbasement among his own filth. He thought about his parents, tied up in their own basement now. No, he was not Liam’s friend.

Maybe he was a ‘bad guy.’ 

“Mr. Argent?” Liam’s voice was cool. It was like he was trying to arrange getting his car repaired. “Josh Diaz just came to my house. Peter Hale is back in town and attacked his family.”

He knew his senses weren’t as sharp as a real werewolf’s, so he would have to focus on the phone to hear the other side of the conversation. It wasn’t all bad – he was pretty sure that Liam couldn’t sense the current flowing through the phone. It was how he usually detected people; he sensed the current in the batteries of their cell phones.

Mr. Argent – the only thing that Josh knew about him was the he was a werewolf hunter – replied in a calm and steady voice on the other side of the line. “Can you get him to the house, Liam? Once you’re here, Melissa can seal you in. Peter won’t be able to get through the line.” 

“Yes, sir,” Liam answered. “I’ll get him there.” 

Liam hung up the phone. “We’re going to the McCall house. It’s lined with mountain ash and Melissa can activate it. Peter can’t breach it.”

“You know this Peter guy? Is he going to hurt my parents?”

Liam thought about it even while he started heading across the street and into people’s yards. “Peter Hale was the werewolf that bit Scott and then tried to kill him. We had put him in Eichen House, but he escaped when it was destroyed. We thought he was in Europe.”

Josh trotted after him. “And my parents?”

Liam shook his head as he jumped over a fence and into his neighbor’s back yard. “Peter doesn’t kill people indiscriminately. He only kills people his twisted-up little mind imagines has hurt him or stopped him from getting what he wants.” 

Josh was about let a sigh of relief when a dark shape slammed right into Liam from where it leaped off the roof of a house. Liam tumbled to the ground. “You were doing so well until you described my mind as little. It’s a lot more expansive than you might think. Children today -- so _rude_.”

Liam rolled to his feet, snarling with fangs and claws fully transformed, his blue eyes glowing balefully. Peter seemed unconcerned as he approached, his own claws going. “That’s a new look for you, Liam. It makes me take you a little more seriously.” When Liam charged him, Peter redirected both the force of the blow and Liam right into the grill in the neighbors’ back yard. “Only a little.”

Josh realized that, whatever he wanted to be, if he wanted this to end and have his life back, he had to help. He started to climb the fence; he had claws and fangs and the charge, and he was stronger and faster than any normal human. As he scrambled over, he could see that Liam was actually stronger than Peter, but it wasn’t doing him much good. Peter’s experience showed in every movement. 

Josh thought he had a good shot. With Liam keeping Peter busy, he’d walk right up behind him and empty a full charge into the man. That should take down any beta werewolf. He was almost in position when suddenly Peter sidestepped one of Liam’s attacks, grabbed the beta by the head, and tossed him onto a covered in-ground pool. Liam’s weight tore right through the tarp and into the water below. 

Josh made his move only to realize that Peter had known where he was the whole time. The werewolf grabbed him by the wrist and threw him up into the air. Josh reflexively let his full charge off as he felt himself falling – right into the same pool that Liam had.

The last thing he heard Peter say before he actually hit the water was: “Tsk. Don't you know that electricity and water don’t mix?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As much as it made sense for Theo to kill Josh in the show, I really hated it. It did give me a chance to expand on his personality and powers a little though.
> 
> Writing Peter Hale is so fun!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott, Stiles, and Isaac head back toward Beacon Hills to deal with Peter. Scott gets to spend only moments with the people he's missed before Peter makes a move on another chimera.

When he was younger and he would be riding in the back seat of his parent's car at night, Scott would sometimes imagine that he was in a submarine under the water or a spaceship travelling the stars. The world would not be the world that was actually outside; it would be an alien landscape which you traverse with surprising velocity. It had been oddly comforting.

Now that he was newly an adult, Scott found that remembered comfort paling when compared to the comfort of waking up with his head on Isaac's chest and their legs tangled together in the back seat. He had crawled back here when he had finished his turn driving without conscious thought; even alphas can get tired. Right now, he was lying essentially on top of Isaac with the sound of his heartbeat in his ears, with his scent curling in his lungs. It was so amazingly, effortlessly right that he trembled. 

With Allison, the whole thing had been intense and exhilarating and worth all the fear. Every stolen moment in her bedroom, every whispered conversation in the school hallway, every hidden rendezvous in the woods had been like receiving a medal. They had earned every feeling that had pulsed through their veins. Nothing could ever come close to that exhilaration. 

With Kira, it had been like spring following after winter. No matter what terrible thing happened, she was there with a smile and a kiss and a laugh. The world split into two worlds: one world when he was with his little fox and one when he was without. Every moment with her was joy; her faith in him was felt like his mother comforting him when he was little and had fallen down and scraped his knee. When they were together, there had always been a temptation to retreat into her arms and feel special. He missed her every single day.

With Isaac, it was so much more practical. He firmly believed that wasn't an insult; being with Isaac was so easy that sometimes he could forget that relationships were supposed to be something you had to work at. If he needed to reach out his hand and steady himself, Isaac was always there and solid, like a mobile rock. It wasn't an end to itself like Allison or some other world with Kira. He could focus on the problems in front of him and still have Isaac. 

HIs mother was right as usual: _You fall in love more than once_.

Scott tried not to move too much so he wouldn't wake Isaac; the dashboard clock said it was nearly 4:00 a.m. Stiles' head was silhouetted by the instrument lights. It gave his friend an unearthly and sad glow.

Scott wondered for the first time whether he could ever have felt the same way for Stiles that he now felt for Isaac. No, he decided, he couldn't have, because before all this had happened, they had been closer than he and Isaac were now. He would never blow Isaac (or Allison or Kira) off because he was not feeling well. He would never take something going wrong in his life and take it out on them. He would be afraid of poisoning their love. 

But Stiles and he were brothers; there was never any fear that Stiles wouldn't be there for him or that he wouldn't be there for Stiles.

Until there _was_ that fear. Stiles was now alone, and while Scott could tell himself all day and all night long that it wasn't his fault, he couldn't shake the feeling that it was actually his fault. He took a deep breath and centered himself. The past could not be changed. He crawled up into the front passenger seat as gracefully as he could, and he managed to do it without waking Isaac.

"Dude, I'm fine. You should get more sleep," Stiles grumbled.

"I've had five hours. Unless it's completely slipped your attention, I'm an alpha." He teased. "How are you holding up?'

"Thinking." Stiles’ voice was so filled with focus and confidence that Scott smiled. "What?"

"Nothing," Scott answered. "What're you thinking about?"

"Peter. His behavior doesn't make any sense." 

"Peter's always been a little crazy, Stiles." Scott turned to watch the white center lines of the road speed past. "He never really recovered from the fire." 

Stiles glanced over him with a surprised look on his face. "You're really too much, you know. I just heard sympathy for Peter in your voice."

Scott rolled his eyes. "Understanding someone doesn't mean condoning their actions. Peter's behavior has always been erratic. He starts all of _this_ ..." Scott gestured to himself. "... to get revenge on Kate and then allies with Kate to get revenge on me. He helped Derek with the Alpha Pack and the Darach and us with the Nogitsune when he had little reason to do so. Yeah, he got something out of it, but he could have gotten those things in other ways."

"Oh, I agree with you there; he's only ninety-five percent rotten. The thing that bothers me is I can't see any benefit for him in kidnapping this Josh kid. Peter Hale doesn't have the tightest screws in the world, but he's always had a consistent theme." Stiles countered. "It has always been about family with him and his rightful place in it. Revenge for his family, helping his family, restoring his family's power. I don't have the market cornered on insecurity. You do realize why he hated you so much?"

"I always assumed it was because I refused to be his beta."

"More than that," Stiles explained eagerly. "Far more than that. You rejected him as your alpha, and yet managed not to go completely omega. You rejected Derek, repeatedly. You shamed Derek." At Scott's grunt of surprise, Stiles grimaced. "The Gerard Mountain Ash Plot saved people lives, Scott, but it was pretty insulting. You stole the Hale's role as Protectors of Beacon Hills. But what was worse -- what was unforgivable -- is that you didn't suffer from it. You became a True Alpha. You flourished."

"I wouldn't call this flourishing," Scott said grimly. 

Stiles continued on at a rapid pace; Scott had experienced this many times before when Stiles was laying out his reasoning. The truth was Stiles' goal here, and he didn't care how callous or unintentionally hurtful he was being. "How many members of your pack have died, Scott? Just two. We've survived enemies that everyone was sure we couldn't, while the Hale legacy is nothing but ashes and dust. We're alive when they aren't; that's got to sting someone like Peter, who likes to justify his actions by claiming it was all for his family."

Scott swallowed his emotions to answer. "Peter should think I'm dead."

"If he did, he doesn't now. If you were dead, Liam would be alpha, or, after those events, Peter would be alpha." Stiles scoffed at that idea. "Which is why his actions don’t make sense. Why take Josh? Peter's smart and he has a great deal of experience with esoteric werewolf lore, but no one but the Doctors understood the process that they used to create the chimera. Why not take Liam? If he was after your power, he would need Liam. And if he wasn't after your power, why pull Liam out of the pool? While Peter doesn't engage in random murder, he is not exactly an altruist." 

Scott couldn't really argue with anything he had said. He had been surprised when Chris on the phone that after defeating both Liam and Josh, Peter had pulled Liam out of the pool. "What do you think?"

"All I have is speculation, Scott, but I think that Peter has more to do in Beacon Hills. He knows us; he knows how we think. What do we do when a member of the pack is hurt, like Liam is now? We put them first. If he had let Liam die, what would everyone be doing?'

"Hunting Peter down." Scott nodded. "He doesn't want us to interfere. What do you think we should do?"

"Right. We just have to figure out his next target." Stiles smiled, unconsciously. Scott knew he always liked being asked his opinion. "I get the feeling it isn't going to be easy, but we should start with the three remaining chimera." 

"But first, you are going to pull over and switch out with me." 

"I'm fine!" Stiles protested.

"You've been driving all night, and I want you fresh when we get ... home." Scott swallowed. Stiles did as he was told this time.

******

Scott had to remind himself that it was okay to get irritated. He was a real person and sometimes things should be able to annoy the shit out of him. "Stiles, this is so fucking racist."

"Absolutely, Hortensio!" Stiles chirped merrily. "That's the point of the whole thing. People see what they want to see, and what we want them to see is not you!"

Scott looked in the car's mirror. He was dressed as every bad American television show stereotype of a Latino ganger, down to the kerchief. "I look ridiculous."

"You look like someone no one wants to cross. You look like you're about to rob an ATM. See! Mischief managed."

Isaac chuckled as he looked him up and down. "I think you look sexy."

Scott scowled at Isaac, but it was lost behind the sunglasses. "Oh. Wonderful." They piled back into the car and crossed the city limits into Beacon Hills.

The conversation died as they drove down the roads of the city. They knew the pavement beneath their wheels; each corner and each building held a memory for them, both good and bad ones. Fingers tightened around the steering wheel; legs were shifted in an effort to get comfortable. Words were not spoken. They knew what this was.

It was a homecoming. 

The SUV pulled up in front of his house. Scott felt his breath catch as he looked up at it, but he wondered why his mom would still live there. She and Rafael had bought it when they were first married and she had taken over the rather expensive mortgage payments when he left. He had never questioned them still living there before because it had been home. 

Scott was the first out of the vehicle and up to the door. He was about to enter it like he had entered it a million times before, but he stopped. He knew this door but he knocked anyway. This was no longer his home.

His mother opened the door with a bright smile on her face; of course, she had been expecting him. There was a moment -- maybe one one-thousandth of a moment -- where it looked like she didn't recognize him. She did a double-take and then grimaced. "Two things." 

Scott blinked.

She grabbed him and hugged him and kissed him on the forehead so hard that he thought both of them were going to fall over. They didn't though, and he wasn't going to deny that he got a little extra water in his eyes. 

"Second thing." She waved her hands at him, as if taking in the whole look. "What the hell is this?"

"It's a disguise!" complained Stiles from behind them. "Why doesn't anyone get that? It's a good disguise!"

Melissa gave Stiles the look she reserved specifically for him and ushered them inside. "You look ridiculous. Right now, it's only Chris and I here. Liam is upstairs; he's sleeping now."

Scott let Stiles and Isaac carry the bags in for safety reasons. They grumbled while he went and talked to Chris. "It's good to see you."

"It's good to see you." Mr. Argent stuck out his hand. Scott knew that he was living here now, and while the hunter might be expecting some over-protective son things, there would not be any. The idea of his mother living alone in Beacon Hills gave him nightmares, and he couldn't think of any person who would make her safer than the head of the Argent clan.

"Could you come up and talk to me about Liam's status?" He asked his mother and Mr. Argent. "I just want to check on him."

Melissa had set Liam up in Scott's bed and it actually did Scott's heart some good to see him there. He knew that they were covering things up for Dr. and Mrs. Geyer. "Is he okay?"

His mother gestured. "He's almost completely healed. According to their parents, he's on an overnight trip with some of his fellow students. When he wakes up, we have to send him home but ..." She smiled at him. "He wanted to see you before."

"Of course," Scott answered. That Liam wanted to see him was actually good news. Things had remained weirdly tense between them. 

Liam was asleep on his bed, looking as if he was taking a nap rather than having been electrocuted and nearly drowned. His mother went back downstairs while he sat down, as carefully as he could. 

Scott reached out and put his hand on Liam's brow and pushed the boy's hair out of his eyes. It had gotten longer in the time he had been gone. Maybe Liam had decided to grow it out. Scott didn't like it but he would never say anything like that openly. He didn't need to put any more expectations on a boy who already had so much on his shoulders.

Scott realized that in a way he was petting Liam. He wanted to comfort him; he wanted to let him know that all the mistakes he had made were understandable. He remembered being this young and having so much unasked for responsibility. He wished he could make it go away, but he had never found a way to do that. 

Liam opened his eyes. "Hey. When did you get here?"

"Just a few minutes ago. How are you doing?" 

"I'm okay." Liam struggled to sit up, and Scott helped him. "I'm sorry I couldn't stop Peter."

"It's okay. I never stopped Peter either until I was an alpha." He tried to be reassuring. "I'm ... I really want to thank you, Liam."

"For what?" Liam was surprised. He was always so surprised when Scott didn't scold him or disparage him.

"You've been trying to protect Beacon Hills all by yourself when I've not been here. You didn't have to do that. So I'm going to thank you." Scott put his hand on his shoulder. He had heard from Chris how Liam was acting. Maybe if he knew it was appreciated, he would feel better about getting help.

Liam rubbed at his eyes. "Okay." He obviously didn't know how to respond to that. "Uhm, do you need me right now?"

"No. I will drop you off at home though. Your parents are going to be worried sick if you don't get home soon." He smiled. "I'll meet you downstairs."

Scott left him to go to the bathroom and get his stuff together. For not the first time, he wished he could be here, could help Liam with all the things he must be feeling. He had even thought about asking Liam to come with him, but he knew that would be both selfish and unfair. Selfish, because Liam deserved to heal at his own pace and unfair to his parents who shouldn't have to share their son with the supernatural. 

Chris Argent was waiting for him at the base of the stairs with bad news. "We've got to go. The man I have watching Corey Bryant's house didn't respond to check in." 

Scott sighed. He had just got here and now he had to run, and he would have to ditch Liam. "Mom, could you take Liam home? Stiles, Isaac, we have to roll!" He rushed to the door pulling on his stupid disguise as he went. If they were fast, they could end this and maybe he could have a moment to spend with his family. 

They scrambled out to the SUV and both Isaac, Chris, and Stiles tried to jump into the driver's seat. Chris scowled; Isaac shrugged; Stiles opened his mouth to argue and Scott rolled his eyes. "Chris drives," Scott ordered, sliding into the passenger seat. "Shotgun. Let's move."

Corey Bryant's house was actually in one of the nicer subdivisions in the city. His parents were both professionals in some field or another and it was reflected in the cars they drove, the house they lived in and the security system on their house. 

"At this time of day, Corey would have just gotten home from school but his parents aren't home from work yet. If Peter wanted to avoid entanglements with them, this would be the best time to try to take him." Chris analyzed the situation for them.

"How long until his parents get home? What's our window?" Isaac was checking his guns in a methodical way and Stiles was watching him. Stiles never used guns himself, but he always appreciated a good gun-handling. 

Chris was all hunter-speak. "Parents don't show up until six to six-thirty, so maybe two hours to be safe. They aren't particularly attentive, so they probably won't notice that Corey's missing until he doesn't show up for school tomorrow."

Stiles screwed up his face as that didn't make any sense to him. The sheriff may have had to work a lot of shifts, but he had always let Stiles know when he was coming back. 

After ten minutes in the car, they pulled up a little ways down the street behind another SUV. Stiles made his usual crack about hunters with SUV's but then he trailed off. All of them were shocked. While it was winter, this was Northern California and it wasn't terribly cold, but the SUV's windows were totally frosted over. 

Chris, Isaac, and Stiles got out of the car, Isaac shoving a pistol underneath his jacket; Chris's gun was already in a holster. Scott had to take a few more minutes to check the surrounding area out and make sure his disguise was in place. It was very annoying.

When he finally got up to the car, they had the Argent hunter on the street and Stiles was performing some basic first aid. 

"How the fuck did he get hypothermic?" Isaac was demanding. 

"You're asking me?" Stiles shouted back. "Let me work."

Chris was checking out the inside of the car. "The interior of the car is must be below zero." He said in wonder. "I've never heard of anything like this. I'm sure that Peter didn't do it."

Scott sniffed the air and the hunter. "I'm not getting any other scent in the car, but ...” He took another big sniff. "I smell Peter. He might still be inside." 

Stiles waved them off. "Go, go. I've got this guy. I may have to call an ambulance, but go." 

"Isaac, you take the back. Scott, you're with me." Chris ordered. Scott felt a slight twinge of resentment when Chris gave an order to Isaac, but he didn't feel anything about Chris giving him and order. It didn't make any sense; he must be weird. 

Isaac sprinted off as Chris and Scott went toward the front door. Scott was concentrating on scent and sound, so it was Chris who pointed it out. "Look at the windows." They were frosted over just as much as the car had been. 

"I don't hear anything from inside the house," Scott said. "I don't smell anything but normal scents and Peter. He could still be here."

Chris tried the front door and found it open. Inside was a strange tableau. It looked like nothing less than someone had turned Corey's house into the inside of a poorly defrosted refrigerator. It was eerie to witness.

Chris readied his gun as his breath fogged their air. "Not as cold as the car," he whispered. "But it could still cause hypothermia. Clever way of defeating Corey's natural defenses."

Scott nodded in agreement. He didn't feel the cold as much as other's world, but he knew that Corey didn't have the same stamina as a werewolf. The chimera's abilities mostly centered on invisibility and strength. "Do you know anything that could do this?"

"A witch? Or someone more skilled than a witch? We need to be careful."

They had just reached the center of the living room when they heard steps coming down the stairs. Peter was coming down here with the unconscious chimera slung over his shoulders. He was wearing a heavy parka and he looked completely annoyed when he saw them, as if he ran into an ex at the bar.

Peter sighed and spoke to someone Scott and Chris couldn't see. "I told you we weren't moving quickly enough. Now, there's going to be a fight."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott tangles with Peter and his mysterious new allies. Chris Argent talks with Scott about his internal conflict with killing.

Peter looked down at them from the stairs with an unconscious Corey slung over his shoulder. “Would it matter at all if I said that I was hoping to do this without meeting either one of you?” The tone of his voice and the glimmer in his eye reminded Scott of how Peter carried himself when Derek was still alpha. 

“Drop him,” Scott demanded and then immediately regretted it. He kept walking right into these self-imposed verbal traps. It wasn’t his fault; no had taught him how to tough talk appropriately. 

Peter smiled and tossed the chimera over the side of the stairs. Scott had to dive out of position to keep the boy from coming to any harm, which let Peter charge down the staircase and confront the rapidly backpedalling Chris. 

Scott hurried to put Corey on the couch as the hunter and the werewolf tumbled over each other. Argent was concentrating on getting more distance from Peter, as he knew that a gun at close range was worse than useless. He hadn’t had time to switch to a melee weapon.

Peter, strangely enough, wasn’t fighting to kill. He was mostly using his greater strength and position to keep Argent off balance. Scott wondered what was going on here; Peter didn’t enjoy killing those who didn’t deserve it, but neither did he shy away from doing what he thought was necessary. Peter spoke aloud: “I’m going to need a little help here.”

Scott moved to throw Peter off of Argent but as he tossed the werewolf across the room he felt a wave of cold chill his skin so much he started shivering. Peter was wearing a parka, but Argent and he were clad only in light jackets. The house had already been cold and it was getting colder. Peter rolled to his feet on the other side of the room as Scott helped Argent to his feet.

Out of the corner of his eye, Scott saw a man start down the staircase. He was thin, blond, and around six feet tall with the palest blue eyes and platinum blond hair. He looked strangely not like a real person, but a washed-out version of a human being. “I understand, Peter. Get the child.” His voice was faint and inflectionless.

Scott turned to the man on the stairs. “Working with Peter isn’t going to get what you want. He can’t be trusted.” 

Peter was keeping furniture between him and Argent, making the hunter switch between hands – one for a pistol and another for the cattle prod. Argent narrowed his eyes as he calculated the distance between them. 

“Scott, I’m hurt.” Peter drawled. He was obviously trying to distract Scott as well. “ _You_ can’t trust me; with everyone else I can get along just fine.”

The temperature in the room had dropped again. It is colder than Scott ever remembered being. “Mr. Argent, what’s doing this?”

“I don’t know, but I have a guess on how to fix it.” The hunter turned and shot out the large picture window in the living room. Corey’s parents were going to have a fit. Air rushed out of the house as the pressure differential created a stiff wind. “It’s why you don’t leave a door open in the winter. That cooling trick won’t work if they have to cool the entire planet.”

“It is not a trick,” said the terrifyingly calm man on the stairs. He began to walk down it, slowly and purposefully. “Your interference is unappreciated.” 

Scott walked up staircase to block the strange man’s descent. “ _Kidnapping people_ is unappreciated. Why do you need them?” He suddenly realized that he couldn’t hear a heartbeat from the man and that he smelled of cold rot. “What the hell are you?”

Instead of answering, the man charged towards him. Scott raised a clawed hand to swipe at him even as he heard gunfire explode below. Isaac had joined the fray. Instead of hitting the man, the claw passed through him and Scott’s hand suddenly felt as if it were on fire. He watched the skin on the hand blacken in surprise. Before he could recover from the distraction, the man passed right through him. Scott’s whole body erupted in pain and an odd burning sensation as he fell back down the stairs. He was unconscious before he reached the bottom. 

******

Scott awoke in the SUV and Stiles was rubbing something on his chest. “What? What happened?” He panicked as he looked around the car. “Where’s Isaac? Where’s Corey? Where’s Mr. Argent?”

Stiles shook his head as he continued to smear that stuff on him. Stiles was … sweating? “Calm down before you hurt yourself. I’ve got to get this stuff on you; it’ll help you heal.” 

Scott nodded and let Stiles continue. Whatever that stuff was, it smelled absolutely horrible, like rotten lettuce mixed with Tabasco sauce.

“Isaac and Mr. Argent are trying to track Peter down. He managed to get away with Corey. After you were taken out, Peter snatched Corey and fled, while Eurotrash Jack Frost kept Isaac and Mr. A busy.” Stiles finished with Scott’s chest and started on his stomach. It was very soothing. “Pull your pants off; I will need to get to your legs.”

“What happened to me?” Scott did as he was told, even though moving was very, very painful. 

“You nearly froze to death. In fact, if you weren’t an alpha you would have frozen to death. I’m not talking about hypothermia; I’m talking about frozen solid.” Stiles explained. “This stuff will help with repairing the tissue damage. When you felt you were burning? That was frost bite.”

“Why are you sweating?” Scott did look down at his legs and there were patches of black skin that were slowly turning back to their original color. 

“It’s like ninety degrees in here; I’ve got the heater on full blast.” Stiles smiled as he watched the skin heal. “Looks like there won’t be any permanent damage.”

“What was that thing? I swung at it and my hand passed right through it. Was it a ghost?”

Stiles shook his head and sat back, capping the jar he had opened. “No. Ghosts are anchored to places, people, or events. They can’t go on kidnapping sprees with Peter Hale when the mood strikes them. That was a mahrt. It’s dead now. Or, honestly, more dead.”

“How did Isaac and Argent kill it?”

“They didn’t. First, as I keep saying, it isn’t alive, so they didn’t kill it. It destroyed itself. Mahrts, obviously, are very, very cold, but there is a limit to the amount of heat they can absorb. It knocked the hunter and Corey out with hypothermia. They can physically absorb heat, which is how it created cold temperatures and nearly killed you by flash freezing you. Eventually, it just couldn’t absorb any more heat and ceased to be.” 

“Oh. That’s a relief. It took me out so easily, I was afraid it was still out there.”

“Don’t relax yet, buddy. Mahrts don’t arise naturally; they’re conjured by necromancers. Thus, this one could be summoned again.” Stiles shook his head. “They’re made from the souls of stillborn children. Isn’t that fun?”

Scott could think of a lot of things that would be more fun. The idea that this creature was made from a baby who never got to be born sickened him. It also meant that Peter was working with a necromancer. He hadn’t even known those were a _thing_.

“Wait!” Scott said. “Wait a minute. What do you know about necromancers?” 

Stiles turned down the heat in the car. “You seem to be getting better. Emissaries – druids actually – study nature. They hate necromancy. Hate it. One of the first things that they teach you is why you never, ever want to do it.”

“Am I going to like this?”

“No. No one who is not totally crazypants likes it. I’m sure you noticed that when Deaton does his thing, it’s always, you know, subtle. The biggest thing we’ve ever seen him do is the guardian sacrifice. That’s because the universe always balances things out. If you use magic to push one way, the universe will push back the other way.” 

“Jennifer wasn’t subtle. Peter wasn’t subtle”

Stiles made his best you-had-to-bring-that-up face. “Jennifer paid it forward, if you understand the expression. When you cast magic, there is always a price. The sacrifices were Jennifer’s price for the strength, the healing, et cetera. She paid the price first – the lives of other people. Druids who don’t leave the good path try to be more subtle with their magic because it makes the payment smaller. Peter’s resurrection left him weak until he stole power from Jennifer.” 

Scott grimaced. “What do necromancers have to pay?”

“Well, that’s the problem. When it comes to minor necromancy like talking to ghosts or seeing images in the eyes of the dead; the price is usually fatigue or having to imbibe minor poisons. If Deaton wasn’t so morally opposed to it, he could employ those types of spells. But when you get into major necromancy – like Peter’s resurrection – things get tricky.” Stiles got a faraway look in his eye. “Strangely enough, the bigger you go with necromancy – like controlling or binding ghosts or summoning creatures like mahrts – the less personal the payment is.” 

“Huh? _Less personal_?”

“Right. For some reason, when you break the rules of death, the price can be paid by people or places other than the caster. Peter’s price was minor compared to what he did due to the intervention of Lydia. As a banshee, she ‘paved the way’ by virtue of what she was. In the case of the Dread Doctors, their necromancy required not only sacrifices but a very specific set of conditions, and the result was a lot of dead people.”

Scott nodded his head. The Dread Doctors had really screwed Beacon Hills over with their experiments. “But they weren’t necromancers?”

“No, they were para-scientists. It’s why they freaked the shit out of Deaton, because it looked like they were able with their experiments to break the rules and suffer no payment. I think they did, though, but I can’t prove it.”

“What payment?” 

“Their lives,” Stiles answered. “The first thing The Beast did, I was told, was to murder them. Why would Valet get rid of loyal and powerful henchmen? I don’t think he had a choice. So, we’ll be dealing with someone of this caliber.”

“Is that why they are going after the chimera? Because they were the Doctors’ creations?” Scott bit his lip. “That may explain the weirdness with Peter.”

“Weirdness?” It was Stiles’ turn to ask questions. 

“Peter was being very careful not to hurt people, even people he had little reason not to hurt like Liam or Mr. Argent. I originally put it down to the way he is, but maybe it is something more.”

Stiles nodded. “Let me focus on that, okay? You need to focus on protecting Hayden and Noah. If a necromancer wants the chimera, it’s not for anything good.” 

“You’re right.” He sat up. “I feel a lot better now. Hey, if we run into another mahrt, how are we supposed to fight it?” 

“Oh, that’s easy. Mahrts dissipate when they’ve absorbed enough heat. Fire fucks ‘em up real good.” 

Scott winced. “Well, that makes sense.” Personally, he wanted to avoid fire. It was a good thing that among all the monstrosities that they had faced as a pack, none had ever used fire as its primary weapon. Well, other than those amateur rent-a-cop assassins. Few people knew that he was terrified of burning. He knew, intellectually, that it was not _his_ fear of fire, but Peter’s fear that had been lodged in his skull. It had hampered him before against the amateur assassins and it might hamper him now, but he’d cope.

Stiles had the keys so they drove while Scott contacted Isaac to see what the situation was. They’d lost Peter on foot. He must have had a car ready somewhere. Argent said that they would meet them at a corner.

“The police are going to get involved,” Argent said immediately as he switched places with Stiles. “The Bryants will call them as soon as they get home.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Scott answered. He knew Argent would want him to sit this one out. “We can’t be sure which chimera Peter is going to target next, so we have to be able to keep them both covered. I’ll do my best to stay hidden.” 

After a brief get together, they split into two teams. Surprisingly, Chris Argent wanted to take Scott with him, so they went to Noah Patrick’s house, while Isaac and Stiles went to Hayden Romero’s apartment. 

Scott was pretty sure that the hunter wanted to talk to him alone. He didn’t seem to be angry, so it might be some sensitive information or something about his mom. Whatever it was, the older man did not come out and say it immediately. Instead, the hunter chose the best place to survey the house. 

“Do you think that Peter might have more of those mahrt things?” Scott had filled Argent on what Stiles had revealed. Argent could not add any more information to what had already been said.

“It is a possibility.” Argent thought about it. “I have road flares for each of us. They should enable us to fight one more effectively.” He shifted in his seat. “It’s Peter that I want to talk to you about.”

Scott wasn’t at all surprised about the change in topic. “I’ve been thinking about him a lot, ever since I heard he was pulling stuff again.” He sighed. “This is about killing him, isn’t it?”

Argent watched the house while talking. “Scott, I know why you are opposed to killing, and I understand your reasoning better than you might think. Honestly, I wouldn’t want you to give up on your conviction. There are, however, only so many times I can pretend that Peter isn’t a threat to the people I care about – which includes you, by the way – and to innocents. Josh and Corey didn’t deserve to be kidnapped, and Liam certainly didn’t deserve to be electrocuted and almost drowned.”

“No, they didn’t.” Scott looked at his hand, picturing the claws he could make come out of it. “But – and I’m not excusing Peter – he’s been very cautious about not killing people. He pulled Liam out of the pool; he didn’t fight to kill at Corey’s house.” 

“True. Why do you think he would do that?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out since,” Scott complained. “I can’t see him holding back against Liam or you, honestly.”

“I have a suggestion, and I want you to take some time thinking about it. I think he may have been holding back for exactly this conversation. He knew that you would not want to kill him, and as long as he didn’t hurt someone, he thinks that we’ll listen to you as the alpha.”

Scott picked at his fingernail. “That sounds like Peter. He’s always been good at perceiving people’s weaknesses and exploiting them. But, isn’t that kind of a good thing? Isn’t it better if he won’t kill people because of us?”

“Because of you, Scott.” Argent shook his head. “And he’s still doing terrible things.”

“I know.” He hated like he sounded like a whining child. “And it’s not just him I have to start thinking about.”

Mr. Argent remained silent, waiting for him to go on.

“I don’t want to kill people. I’ve never wanted to kill people. But the fact is I’m not going to be doing the same things I was doing before. I’m not just defending Beacon Hills and its people by reacting to supernatural threats. The stuff I’ve been learning; the stuff Stiles and Isaac have been learning. They’re not meant to be just reactive. They’re meant to be … aggressive, I guess.”

“True,” said Mr. Argent. “Are you having second thoughts?”

“No!” Scott shook his head. “I mean, no, I’m not having second thoughts about doing what I can to help people, but I know that shifting the focus will … it’s one thing to react to what is going on, but it is another thing to go after the bad guys. There’s more of a chance ….”

“There is more of a chance that people will be killed, and that you will be the person doing the killing.” Argent finished for him.

“Yes. I can’t pretend that taking this route, of being what I want to be, will make it less likely that I will end up killing someone. It is a matter of time, I guess.”

Argent pursed his lips and sat there for a few minutes. It was obviously he was trying to put together something to say to him, so Scott gave him the time you needed.

“Scott, if you would fight those who would prey on others, you are putting yourself at a short-term disadvantage if you only kill when absolutely necessary. The type of people you’ll be going up against will most likely see that as a weakness and the will see to exploit it. In that case, innocents may be hurt, and the predators may get away. You’ll need to be prepared for that.”

Argent turned to look at him He made sure that Scott would look him straight in the eyes.

“It will happen, but I think you can make a real difference to people, Scott. Especially now that you are an adult. And if you doing that requires you to take extra precautions because you don’t want to kill unless you have no other choice, then you should do what you need to do. You refusing to help because you don’t want to kill isn’t going to stop innocents from getting hurt and it isn’t going to stop predators from doing exactly what they want.”

“People like to think that ending the threat is the most important thing when dealing with violence and injustice. They’d mock you for being unwilling to take the necessary steps to protect people. What they don’t get is that there will always be predators. You kill one efficiently, they’ll be one right behind them. And one behind that one. And one behind _that_ one. And if killing is your first response, eventually, killing will become something _normal_.”

“Look at my family, Scott. Kate was good at what she did: fast on her feet, cool under fire, and a master of improvisation. She liked the feeling of power this brought her and she was praised for her efficiency. No one pointed out that that maybe there were alternatives to killing. It became normal for her. So, eventually, she burned a family alive and she didn’t even question it.”

Argent spoke with conviction. “Yes, you’re discomfort with killing is going to complicate things. Some things deserve to be complicated.”

Scott didn’t know what to say immediately. Argent had just poured his heart out to him, and he couldn’t think of anything to say in response that wouldn’t sound childish. “Thanks. I mean it. I will only do it as a last resort, but I think I have to be open to the idea that I am going to kill someone. I’m going to stop Peter, and I’m going to try to do it without killing him. I’m glad to have your help.”

“Of course.” Argent turned back to surveillance. Scott settled into watch the house with him.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mr. Argent and Scott go on a stakeout. Peter's next move is revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Suicide Ideation in this chapter.

Scott grumbled in his seat. “Why the hell is this so hard?” He rolled his shoulders on the seat trying to get more comfortable.

Argent looked over at him and raised his eyebrows in a silent question. He had been quiet throughout the several hours they had spent watching Noah Patrick’s house.

“One of the alphas that I trained with taught me the reason that Derek is so much better at using his senses than I am,” Scott explained. “She said that something happens a lot with bitten wolves; their senses are so much more powerful than a human's that they start shutting them down to handle the new sensations. In order to cope with everything, they keep them shut down, focusing on them only when they think they need to. They get into the habit of treating them like tools so much that using them well requires their active focus. But humans don’t have to think ‘I want to smell something now;’ they just do. Born wolves like Derek are the same; they have always had these senses, so they don’t have the same problem. They just do it.”

“So, you’re trying to relearn how to use your senses.” Argent nodded his approval. “A stakeout is a good place to do that.”

“Yeah. I would’ve never imagined how hard it is to learn how to _stop_ doing something. She taught me some meditation techniques,” Scott shook his head ruefully. “But my conscious mind keeps telling me I need to be alert, not relaxed.”

Argent chuckled. “That just tells me that you haven’t been on many stakeouts. You’ll learn in time. If you pick up anything during stakeouts, they teach you how to handle boredom.”

“How do you handle it?” Scott had watched Mr. Argent sit quietly and without fidgeting through the hours they had spent in the car.

The slight smile dropped from the older hunter’s face. “Some people eat. Some people listen to the radio. I don’t like doing things that engage my senses when I’m observing.”

Scott noticed that Argent hadn’t answered his question. He waited patiently as the older man watched the house in the distance. 

“Right now? I like to think about your mother.” 

Scott choked a little bit at the first thing that popped into his mind.

Argent rolled his eyes. “Not like that. I think about wanting to take her on a vacation. I am thinking of Hawaii. She’s never been to Hawaii. So I plan out when, and where, and what we’ll see. It’s daydreaming, but it isn’t something that needs a lot of focus.” 

It sounded pretty nice, but the strange thing was that while he wasn’t lying, he wasn’t happy. The scent of sorrow filled the car. Scott had breathed it in often enough in the past to recognize it immediately.

“No, she’s never been there. I think she’d love it.” Scott doesn’t know if he should press on, but there was something in his gut telling him that he should. This man was inching closer and closer to becoming his step-father, and maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a better relationship with him than he had with his own father. “Did you used to think of … Mrs. Argent on stakeouts? I mean, think about things you could do with her?”

Chris didn’t look at him, but Scott could see his face reflected in the windshield. “I did.” 

“You can talk about her, if you want. I mean, she was important to you, wasn’t she?” 

“I didn’t think you would want to hear about her. She tried to kill you, Scott.” 

Scott certainly remembered that. He remembered it vividly, down to the burn in his lungs. He remembered the overwhelming fear that he was going to just vanish and let everyone down. “I know, but I also know she was doing it to protect Allison.” He swallowed. “She was right, wasn’t she?” 

Argent snapped his head around. “Scott, Allison’s death wasn’t your fault.”

“No. But it was my responsibility. She was pack, and I’m the alpha.” Scott shook his head. He knew this wasn’t unnecessary guilt. “It’s the price you pay for being the leader. I have to remember that.” He changed the topic back to Mrs. Argent; he didn’t need to fight with Chris over that. “But Mrs. Argent was more than just a person who hated me. She was more than a person who tried to kill me. I don’t want to be like everyone else; they’re so quick to reduce people to the worst thing they've ever done.”

“That’s true.” Argent looked sad for a moment. “I’m very glad you’re not.”

“Tell me about her.” Scott asked suddenly. He wanted to know about Allison’s mother. He wanted to know about the parts of her that weren’t psycho-werewolf-hunting matriarch. He had never asked Allison, because he thought it would be too painful for her. He thought now that that had been a mistake.

“She was strong.” Argent said in response; his voice waved with nostalgia. “Stronger than me by far. I’d come home, and I’d be tired by the hunt or worried about something or just disgusted by something that had happened. She’d look me in the eye and say ‘Did you do what you needed to do? Did you do what you had to do?’ She knew what I needed and she gave it to me. She made all the terrible things in my life easy. I guess, though, that she made things too easy. I didn’t ask questions when I should have, because I always let her be my answer.”

Scott could imagine what that felt like. Weirdly enough, it had always been Stiles who had the answers for him. “You trusted her. Nothing wrong with that.”

“I loved her. Trust was a big part of that, but it was also the little things.” He bit his lip. “She hated cooking. She hated cleaning. She hated it, but she was great at both. I’d come home and the house would be spotless and there would be dinner on the table – you ate some of her food.”

Scott grimaced. “Yeah.”

“She didn’t do it because she liked doing it. She did it for me, because she knew how ambivalent I could become towards what we do. Moving around all the time. Killing people. I didn’t think about it like I do now; the person I was couldn’t afford to do that. It was what I was born to do, but it wasn’t something I always enjoyed. She understood that, and even though she was involved as well – she always made the final call - so she worked hard so it wouldn’t be the only thing in my life.”

Scott smiled. He appreciated this. He appreciated knowing there was something more about Victoria Argent than hatred and fear. 

“Scott, do you know why I fell in love with your mother?” 

Scott laughs. “She’s got really great legs for a woman her age?”

“No.” Argent chuckled. “Well, yes, she is beautiful. But I fell in love with your mother because she really _hates_ that you're a werewolf.” 

Scott felt kind of poleaxed by that statement. He hadn’t realized that she still felt that way. 

“She has hated it since the first day she found out. All she ever wanted to do was to make it go away, so you could be a teenage boy again. She wanted you to go to summer school. She wanted you to go to the Junior Prom and maybe make first line. She would give anything for you to be at college right now, trying to decide which fraternity you’d join. She hates that all of that was taken away from you.” 

Scott relaxed; he could see that. “She once said that she wished that I wouldn’t get involved, but she knew that I would.”

“She’s always been there for you. She’s supported you, given you advice, given you comfort, and then sent you back out there into our world even when the thing she wanted most was to take you and run away. She does it because she loves you enough to do what’s best for you, even if she hates it.” 

Scott couldn’t help but agree. “I didn’t need to hear that to know that she loves me that much.”

“I hope you don’t mind that I want to feel something like that again.” Argent was looking out the window. “Good Lord, if you ever tell anyone I was that sentimental, I’ll shoot you. You know I can do it.”

“Well, your secret is safe with me.” Scott laughed. “As long as I get to pull you through a car window at least once.”

“Fair enough.”

They sat in companionable silence for a while watching out for signs of Peter. Every once in a while, Scott would text Stiles or Stiles would text Scott, as agreed. Coordination was an interesting change. Finally, after night had fallen, they watched Noah Patrick take the garbage out for his parents.

Scott immediately grew tense. After nightfall would be the best time for Peter to try to kidnap the boy, but it seemed that he was safe dragging bags and recycling boxes to the curb. 

“What do you know about him?” Scott asked the hunter. ‘Know Thy Enemy’ was a tactic that Scott was pretty sure that Argent had had drilled into him by his father. Scott hadn’t had time to get to know Noah; he may have met him once or twice at school, but there was so much going on he didn’t remember a single thing about him.

“He’s pretty much your average sophomore. He gets good grades, but he’s not a standout. He’s in the Drama Club and the Christian Student Fellowship. What stands out from talking with his parents and checking his school records is his nature – he’s described as soft-spoken and gentle.”

“You got his school records?” Scott said out loud.

“Scott, I had my credential-less father installed as the high school principal. I can get hold of confidential records.” Argent wasn’t exactly boasting. 

“What do you know about his abilities?” Scott was trying to figure out what Peter intended to do with the chimera if he captured all of them. He almost giggled because he had weird thought – what if Peter was confusing them with Pokémon? He needed to stop thinking like Stiles. 

Argent frowned. “You haven’t seen him in action, have you?”

“Maybe? In the confrontation with Theo, I was focused primarily on Theo. He has a set of retractable claws that aren’t like a werewolf’s.” 

“He’s been implanted with a berserker spirit.” Scott shuddered at Argent’s words. “Yet, somehow, he’s able to regain his original personality. I think the Doctors must have somehow created a means to artificially bring the spirit under control. He is pretty unique.”

Scott took a deep breath to steady his emotions, glad that Argent couldn’t hear his heartbeat. He never talked about it, but there had been a time, right after the second trip to La Iglesia, that he had been considering some pretty extreme things. He hadn’t told anyone, because there hadn’t seemed to be a right way to tell anyone. He didn’t want to sound like he was whining.

What no one knew, not even Stiles, was what he felt immediately after Kate lowered that mask on his face. He had been screaming and terrified, because he had fought those things before, and he had felt their wrongness. Even Deucalion in his full Demon Wolf form hadn’t been as so frighteningly _wrong_ as the berserkers. There was nothing human in them at all, and yet they weren’t really animals either. They were abstractions given flesh. He had thought he would almost go mad with fear as the hooks dug into his head.

The pain from the mask had focused him enough to stop screaming. For the briefest moment he believed it hadn’t worked and he had been filled with relief. But as quickly as that had happened he started wondering why he even felt that way. He drifted off, just as if he was going asleep. He could see and hear things; he was aware of things, but everything was so much simpler. He understood later that it was simply the animal spirit pushing him to one side. It had been Liam’s plea that had ‘woken’ him up, enough to shatter the mask and drive the animal spirit out.

It had been a near thing, far closer to disaster than anyone in the pack had known, that he had managed to come back. No one knew. No one even asked. The fact that he had been a berserker was never mentioned again.

In the days afterward, where everyone was focused on Derek leaving and Peter ending up where he belonged, Scott had put on his ‘everything is fine’ face. It was part of being a leader. You had to reassure people that life went on, that things got better, that they could pick up the threads of their life and continue on. He trained with Liam. He played games with Stiles. He studied with Lydia. The pack became less a fighting unit and more a group of friends. “I finally have a clique,” Stiles had joked.

And every night, Scott stared up at the ceiling like he was looking through that mask. 

Sometimes he dreamed. They weren’t exactly horrible. He didn’t wake up screaming or anything. He dreamed about standing in La Iglesias and keeping watch. He was waiting for Kate to return and give him a purpose. Standing there as the years passed and he got older until all that he could remember was crushed obsidian and the crumbling iconography of Tezcatlipoca. 

In the morning, he would stare at the mirror. He would be so thirsty for some reason, as if the desert had stolen in through the window and taken up residence in his throat. He would go down to the kitchen and drink glass after glass after glass of water, just to drive it away. 

One night, a little after two a.m., he had suddenly sat up in his bed. He had not had a bad dream, but he had been a little restless. A thought had occurred to him – Kate was still out there. He knew that Mr. Argent and the Calaveras were still pursuing her, but they hadn’t caught her. She could come back at any time. She had easily taken him the first time right out of Derek’s loft in the middle of Beacon Hills. She had actually broken into his home before, breaking into this very room, to take the age-regressed Derek. She could be there, standing in the dark. She could be there right now. The thought made his lungs contract so much that he thought he was having an asthma attack.

He had flipped on the light and manically started packing a bag. It would have been ridiculous in the end as he didn't pay much attention to what he was packing. Scott had only the frantic notion that he just had to go – somewhere, anywhere – where no one knew him. Kate couldn’t find him then. Peter couldn’t find him then. All these fucking monsters who wanted him to join them wouldn’t be able to stand so fucking cockily before him and pretend they were the same. 

He hadn’t gone, of course. When the panic had subsided he realized how many people needed him there. It didn’t feel good, that night. It felt like a weight, like a ball and chain around his ankle. It didn't even feel fair. Everyone had given Stiles all the time they could when he had been freed of the Nogitsune’s possession. They had waited until he had felt grounded. 

But there was no waiting for him. He was the alpha. He had to be strong for everyone, because that was the only way that any of the terrible shit that had happened meant anything. The pack had to believe that the world they found themselves in was survivable, and that meant he couldn’t just bail on them. It might destroy them.

There was only one way out. 

He could make it look like an accident, he imagined. While everyone thought that Stiles was always the one with the plan, Stiles was actually really good at improvisation – of having a plan when they needed one _right goddamn now_. That talent was one Scott had come to rely upon, but it wasn’t the same as figuring things out in the long term.

He thought that the best way to do it would have been with fire. It could be a night of the full moon when his mother was working the night shift, and he asked her to seal him in with mountain ash, as a precaution. She had no ability to tell that it was a lie. Then he’d open one of the windows and stage it as if someone through a lit Molotov cocktail through the window. Hunters were still a thing, after all. His mother could use the insurance money. It was a good plan.

He had actually set it up. He had stood there with the window open and the rag-stoppered bottle of whiskey in one hand and a match in the other. It wouldn’t take long at all. But in the end, he had just put the whiskey back and went to bed.

He couldn’t bring himself to face the fire. He knew what that felt like.

Now, he felt nothing but sympathy for Noah Patrick. He wondered if Noah understood how close he was to oblivion. Maybe Scott should tell him, but what good would that do? The Dread Doctors hadn’t left instructions on how to undo the effects of their experiments. It would be like telling Noah that he was living with an inoperable aneurysm – any moment things could change and he’d just be gone.

Lydia had always stated that it was better when they knew the truth. He wasn’t sure in this case that this was true. 

The night was still and quiet; twilight was over and the stars twinkled between the clouds. Scott was getting used to the silence, and Argent was as stolid as ever. 

Scott was about to question Argent about Peter’s options when he saw the front door of the Patrick’s house swing open and Noah rush down the sidewalk. The senior had this look on his face that was half surprise and half concern, and the moment he was out of the house, he started running. 

“Scott, follow him on foot,” Argent ordered. “He’s heading towards Hayden’s house. I’ll warn the others and follow by car.”

Scott didn’t mind Argent giving him orders. It was reflex for hunt. Besides, he was already half out the door when the hunter started speaking. Noah was probably reacting to something he felt, and if Peter was half as clever as he usually was, he could certainly use that against him.

Noah might have been a berserker chimera, but Scott was an alpha and he quickly caught up with him. “Noah! Stop! This could be a trap!” Scott tried to get the kid to stop; he didn’t want to just grab him and trigger the change.

“Something’s wrong with Hayden!” Noah responded, not slowing down. “I have to get to her.”

“Then let’s go together. You can’t help her if you get caught to.” Scott pleaded and then relaxed as Noah slowed down. “I’ve got friends there watching her. If she’s being attacked, they’ll help her. Let’s just be careful.”

Noah took a deep breath and stopped. “She needs me. It’s like I can’t get that out of my head.”

“He may be counting on that; just focus. You’re more than that. Let me go with you and I’ll make sure you get there in one piece.” 

The pair of them one more sprinted off through the darkness of Beacon Hills.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter completes his gambit as Scott struggles to catch up. Stiles figures out some of Peter's motives.

Scott found himself, against all of his instincts, slowing down his pace as he scrambled through Beacon Hills’ night-shrouded neighborhoods. Given the urgency of the situation, he knew it was a bad idea. But he could feel that Noah was beginning to wind. It seemed that while he was a chimera, Noah wasn’t a particularly powerful one when he hadn’t invoked the Berserker spirit trapped inside him. When he was ‘normal,’ he seemed to be only a little tougher and a little stronger than a normal human. He didn’t even come close to being the equal of the weakest omega werewolf. 

Scott refused to complain out loud, as frustrating as it was to slow down for the senior. He knew he could say the words that would spur Noah into moving faster; maybe it could spur him into drawing onto the unwanted power trapped within him. The senior was so interested in Hayden’s well-being that it wouldn’t take much to provoke him. 

But he wouldn’t have time to explain why. He wouldn’t have time to talk about how much Peter’s mysterious activities and his horrific necromantic allies concerned him. He wouldn’t have time to explain to Noah that the fact that he couldn’t understand Peter’s motivations made him afraid of what was happening to his victims. And because he couldn’t explain, he wouldn’t complain, wouldn’t provoke, and wouldn’t give orders.

Derek had tried to do that when they first met. He’d tried to push Scott into adapting to his new life and into helping him put an end to Peter’s threat, but it had come across as stalking, threats, and bullying. Scott had realized only later how much urgency there had been behind that stalking, how much terror behind the threats, and how much frustration behind the bullying. 

Derek couldn’t have given Scott a leisurely course in being a werewolf while trying to hide from the Argents and track down the man who had murdered his sister. How long would it have taken Derek to explain that Laura’s death had ripped open every single half-healed wound in his soul caused by the death of his family? How would Derek even have started to explain that every time he saw Scott with Allison, he saw himself with Kate? It was little more than a month between Scott’s bite and Peter’s death. 

Derek hadn’t explained himself, but he had still acted as if Scott had had a reason to trust him, because the older man thought he had no choice. It hadn’t worked, and it had created a rift between them that only time could undo. But it had taught Scott an important lesson, one which he was glad to know now and grateful for Derek’s teaching him about it. 

You can lead through trust or you can lead through force. The former takes more effort and more time, but in the end it is stronger than the latter. When you used force, things broke. 

Noah Patrick had been broken enough. 

Scott could only imagine what the remaining chimera felt like. They were something new and unique in the world, and that could possibly be exciting. It would also make them so isolated. They may have been hybrids of existing creatures, but how that worked was anyone’s guess since the Doctors had been slain. He could only guess it would feel similar to the way he felt when he was first bitten only ten times as worse. There wasn’t going to be a Derek there to show them that it was possible to survive. And since they had to deal with that, he was going to let Noah participate in his own way and in his own time.

The senior was breathing heavily from their full-out sprint. “We’re close. I go to Hayden’s apartment a lot.” 

“That’s good. Catch your breath; I’ll be right back.” Scott crept forward as stealthily as he could, taking care to make sure he didn’t stand downwind from the apartment. He didn’t want to give Peter any chance to sense his approach.

He hadn’t got very far when he saw something that made his heart drop into his stomach. Police lights were flashing on the street, blue and red, throwing distorted shadows over the entire neighborhood. The last thing he needed was the police involved. His fingerprints were still on record, even though he was legally dead.

Creeping around the corner of a building carefully, he saw that the police were not only there, but they had driven right up to Argent SUV that Stiles and Isaac had been using to stake out the Romero apartment. The two of them were doing the hands-on-the-hood, spread-your-legs stance that happened when the police arrested you. Scott could hear Stiles talking.

“We haven’t done anything wrong, deputy!” Stiles sounded like he was giving his best bullshit; he had actually gotten better at lying over the years. He hadn’t mention his father yet; Scott was pretty sure that Stiles would never ever mention his father lightly again. “We were just sitting here, hanging out.”

“You were hanging out in a car on a street on which neither of you live.” The officer, one that Scott didn’t know, gave a disbelieving snort. “Why?”

Stiles didn’t blink. “Well, it’s embarrassing but . . . we’re having an affair.” 

Isaac choked. Stiles would be giving himself a tally mark on the Scoreboard of Life.

“Don’t be like that, Isaac,” Stiles pleaded. “Isaac’s boyfriend doesn’t know we’re seeing each other and … well, he’s not ready to tell him yet. Aren’t you, honey?” 

Scott sighed. Stiles was gonna get it. 

Isaac gritted out. “No. We just wanted some … alone time.” Isaac was nowhere good at lying as Stiles was.

“You were sitting here making out,” repeated the exasperated police officer. “With an assault rifle in the back seat?”

Scott could almost hear Stiles nodding his head that hard. “You haven’t met the boyfriend. So possessive, and we’re just afraid of him. He’s a real monster.”

Scott rolled his eyes. Stiles was really gonna get it.

“I have permits for all the weapons in the car, officer,” Isaac explained. “If you would let me get them …”

Scott moved back toward where he had left Noah. He suspected that Peter had spotted the stake out and called the cops on them, which meant that there was a good chance that he was still there, trying to get at Hayden. He sprinted back to Noah.

“Can you get us to the apartment building without being seen from that street?” Scott probably could do it if he thought about it, but he hadn’t been in Beacon Hills in more than eight months. It was better to let Noah take the lead. Between the police and Peter, he couldn’t afford any mistakes. Noah nodded and started off one again, the brief rest allowing him to catch his breath.

Following Noah’s instructions, they got to the rear of the apartment building. It was a two story modern apartment building with thin walls but low rent. “Hayden’s apartment is on the other side on the second floor. We have to go out front to get to the staircase up.”

Scott worked at the puzzle in his mind. “Okay. You need to get on my back.” He bent down, took off his shoes and socks and tied the laces together. 

Noah blinked at him. “What?”

“I think that you want to help me check on Hayden?” Noah nodded as Scott slung the shoes around his neck. “There’s a police car out front, and I can’t be seen by them. I don’t want to send you by yourself because Peter could be waiting for you if his goal is to kidnap all of you.” Scott turned around. “The only way there is up and over. Please, get on my back.”

It was awkward as hell, but Scott could easily carry the weight. He grew both sets of claws. Toe claws. Always gross.

During his months away from Beacon Hills, while he was training with an alpha in Honduras, he hadn’t worn shoes for two weeks. The alpha had insisted that Scott had to embrace every part of his nature. The fact that the toe claws reminded him of Kali didn’t help, but he had done as he was asked. They did make climbing easier.

It certainly helped now as he climbed up the side of the apartment building. The owners would probably be pretty seriously put out when they found these gouges in the wall. Scott felt badly about it, but not bad enough to stop.

About three-quarters of the way up the building, Noah whispered to him. “This is really weird.”

Scott chuckled but then got up to the sloping roof. “If that’s the weirdest thing that happens to you, you’ll be lucky.” He bit his words back, as he realized how insensitive that was. Noah had had plenty weird things happen to him. He lowered his voice. “Walk me to where her apartment is.”

They crawled carefully over the roof. Noah indicated that the thought he was right above it. Scott put his ear to it, but even his hearing couldn’t get anything from within the apartment. He whispered to the younger teen: “Watch me. I’ll go first, you copy me. Don’t worry, I’ll catch you.”

Scott swung out over the edge of the rood and down onto the balcony for the second floor. He landed as softly as he could and then nodded to Noah, ready to catch him. There was no need, because while Noah was only a little tougher than a human being, he was still naturally graceful. The chimera pointed out the right apartment.

Scott hears the television on low. He doesn’t smell blood, and he certainly doesn’t smell Peter. Hayden’s scent is all over the place, but this is her home. He doesn’t hear the sounds of violence. He could kick open the door, but what if Peter hadn’t made a move yet? He shared his thoughts with Noah. “Can you knock? I’ll be right there.”

Noah went to the door and knocked politely. He was such a quiet, polite person that Scott suddenly couldn’t believe that the Doctors had done something as perverse as locking a Berserker spirit inside him. Or maybe that was why they had done it. He had been the last chimera created before The Beast, and maybe their work on him had given them the idea of who to use for the Beast. 

The door opened the way someone comfortable and at home would open the door. It was Deputy Clark, Hayden’s sister. Scott shrank back into the shadows. It wouldn’t do if she saw him.

“Hey, Noah. Sorry, you just missed Hayden.” Her scent and heartbeat were normal; she wasn’t stressed. “Corey wanted to meet her at the diner.” 

“Oh. I guess I should have called first.” Noah, on the other hand, was now panicking. Scott could hear the tremor in his voice even without superior hearing. “Talk to you later, Valerie.” 

They give their farewells and Noah rushed over to him. “There’s a diner over on Elk Street where we meet to talk about things.”

“Corey couldn’t have contacted her willingly.” Scott looked out over the railing. The deputy was still harassing Isaac and Stiles. Getting back on the roof would be difficult. 

Noah looked down at the ground. “Follow me. We just act normally. People come in and out of this building every day. The guy in apartment five deals drugs. Hayden’s sister can’t prove it, but we all know it.” 

It was a risk to do as Noah asked. Scott sat down on the balcony outside of the apartments and put his shoes back on. It had not even been a year, though it felt like so much longer. What if this deputy recognized him? Coming to a decision, he got up and told Noah to take the lead. He knew why he didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to be seen because it would ruin his new identity, but he also didn’t want to be seen because _he didn’t want to be seen_. 

To almost everyone, he was the Beast of Beacon Hills, serial killer and psychopath, trial or no trial. It was a lie fostered on the world by Gerard Argent, but it stuck because it had to stick. He had no problem with the people who knew the truth, but he didn’t want to be recognized by those who believed the lie. He took Noah’s advice because he knew that his reluctance to take the risk wasn’t just wisdom but fear. It was the middle of the night and the deputy was busy. They needed to go faster, so he buckled down and did it

Noah was proven right. They walked casually down the stairs and out into the street, Scott following in the senior’s footsteps. A glance over his shoulder saw the cops fully involved with Stiles and Isaac. He had caught Stiles’ eye, who winked at him. Isaac would be able to follow the scent if and when they got out of this legal problem.

The diner was one that Scott had only been to on one occasion. It was made specifically to invoke the feel of a diner: lots of glass, booths, and a long counter. Noah, once again out of breath, pointed to Hayden’s car when they arrived. 

Scott could pick out Peter’s distinctive scent as they approached the car. He had been here, but his scent had so faded that Scott knew he wasn’t here now. They were too late. Scott clenched his fist but hid his frustration from Noah. “Could you go inside? See if she’s there?” 

Scott waited until Noah was inside before cursing. Peter had this all planned out, down to the timing. His creator was at his best when he could keep people guessing. The most important guess now was: why did he want the chimeras? 

Scott kept one eye on Noah as he ratcheted his senses as far as they could go. Hayden had arrived at the diner and immediately got into another car; she was afraid and anxious but not terribly so. Peter’s car. Probably, he had Corey or Josh with him as hostage, as Scott could pick up a second chimera’s scent; from what he learned of Hayden, she cared for her fellow chimeras enough for them to be used against her. 

Noah was still free though, and through the strange bond he had with Hayden, they could track Peter. That’s how they catch him. Scott looked up to make sure he could still see Noah in the diner.

The windows were completely fogged over with condensation.

Scott’s leap shattered one of the front windows. Transformed and ready for action, for the first time, he’d be glad that innocent bystanders could see his werewolf face. They wouldn’t be able to recognize him. He landed on someone’s table, actually standing on their dinner. He’d apologize later. “Noah, get away from her.”

The mahrt was standing near one end of the counter, advancing steadily on Noah. Noah, on the other hand, was coming at her and it looked like he was giving in to the spirit trapped within. His right hand was already growing a long bone claw. 

The waitress, the cook, and the very, very frightened customers were confused by the rapidly dropping temperatures and the monsters. They had been shocked, but when Scott jumped through the window, they ran.

It was probably safest, but Scott couldn’t think about the fleeing people as he strained to hear what the ice-ghost-thing was saying. 

“You’ll cannot stop us,” she hissed at Noah. “She is already beyond your reach.” 

Noah advanced on her, but the chimera didn’t know that his physical attack wouldn’t work on a mahrt. In a flash, he understood the plan. This wasn’t a kidnapping. This was an assassination. 

Scott suspect that Noah in berserker form could survive the freezing touch of the mahrt. But if he was frozen when he reverted, he’d die immediately. The human form of Noah showed no ability to heal. 

Scott charged Noah from behind, grabbing him. Already partly transformed, he was as strong as Scott, but he was still capable of being surprised. Before that could change, Scott threw him bodily through another plate glass window. He hoped the diner had good insurance.

“I’m not going to let you kill him,” he growled at the creature.

The pale blond girl tilted her head slightly, as if she was a child about to burst into tears. “I don’t think you can stop me,” she replied with little inflection and then leapt forward. 

The battle quickly became comic. The mahrt kept trying to make contact with him, and Scott scrambled to get out of the way. It wasn’t very dignified, but she was determined. Scott was at a disadvantage because he had left his flares in the car.

Thinking quickly, he worked his way back to the kitchen. When she came to him, he picked up a pot of boiling water, burning himself on the handles, and flung it at her. He gritted his teeth but steam rose from where the scalding water hit the freezing creature. He grabbed a pot of hot soup and did the same thing. 

It’d be funny if he wasn’t desperate to make sure she never got a hand on him. He kept moving even though the kitchen was full of steam and fog. He knew he could hear her or smell her. Could she sense him? 

“Scott!” Isaac’s voice called out from the front of the diner. 

_Thank God_ , Scott fought. Scrambling by memory, he ran to the front of the diner. Isaac and a calmer Noah were standing there. “There’s another mahrt, Isaac!” 

“Where is it?” Isaac peered into the ruined diner. 

“I lost it in the fog.” Scott explained as Stiles pulled up with the SUV. He repeated it loudly. “It’s trying to kill Noah, and I don’t know why. But we can’t let them do it. Stiles, flares!” 

Stiles brought them all but there was no sign of the mahrt. “How did you drive it off?”

Scott, searching the darkness around the diner, said offhandedly. “I just hit it with soup.”

Isaac laughed, even though he was bodyguarding Noah. 

“Boiling soup. It was hot! I used boiling water, too.” Scott protested.

“Okay. Saving that solid-gold teasing fodder for less stressful times.” Stiles said, gesturing toward the card. “We can’t stay here. That cop wasn’t too far away and he’s not going to believe us if he catches us again. In.”

Noah protested with a grunt. There was still part of him that needed to find Hayden. 

“We can’t do anything right now,” Scott implored. “You did your best, but if we get the police involved, you’ll never find her. Please.”

They piled into the SUV and sped off into the night. Scott explained to Isaac and Stiles all the things he had seen and those he had figured out. His colleagues listened closely. 

Isaac was driving, and Stiles was in the front passenger seat. Scott had sat in the back to help Noah keep calm. It seemed to have worked; he was back to almost-human by now. 

“Why kidnap three of the four chimera and try to kill the last?” Stiles asked out loud. He was attempting to puzzle out the motivation. “Why would Peter be so careful to make sure no one died and then have his allies try to kill an inexperienced chimera – no offense.” 

“None taken. Maybe it’s because I can still sense Hayden? She’s that way.” 

Without waiting for a decision, Isaac turned into the direction. 

“That makes sense, but if Peter needed the chimeras …” Stiles trailed off and shot upright in his seat. Scott had known him long enough to realize that he was on the verge of figuring it out.

Noah seemed disturbed but Scott put a hand on his arm. It was best to let Stiles go when he got into one of his deductive frenzies. 

Stiles shook his head. “Peter’s not after chimeras, Scott. He’s kidnapped them, but the fact that they’re chimeras is incidental. It all fits: mahrts summoned by a necromancer, Peter being the mastermind, the people’s he taken. They all have one thing in common with Peter – Hayden, Corey, and Josh were all resurrected.”

Scott blinked at him. Even after all this time, even after all that he had seen and done, he wasn’t as quick as Stiles was to go for the truth. 

Stiles’ head whipped around. “Noah, you’ve never died, did you? Theo never brought you back.” 

Noah stuttered his answer. “Uh, n-no.”

“That’s why they didn’t try to take him. And given he can sense Hayden, they had to get rid of him or he’ll lead anyone right to them. There is some quality about being resurrected that Peter is after. It’s not that common, thank God.”

Isaac observed from his position. “But, not to bring up terrible memories, but you and Scott were both drowned for sixteen hours, longer than Hayden was dead. Wouldn’t he come after you if that were the case?”

“He doesn’t need to come after us,” Scott stated. “Because we’re not going to let him do whatever he is going to do with those kids. We’re going after _him_.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott, Stiles, and Isaac begin their pursuit of Peter and the kidnapped chimeras. Scott checks in with Derek.

The clerk handed Scott his boarding pass back. “Here you go, Mr. Calavera. Thank you for flying with us today.” He gave her the warmest smile he could, given he was answering to that name.

Scott stepped away from the ticket counter. If he had to be honest with himself, he was a little nervous. This was only his third time flying in a jet plane, and the first time, he had been in a coma. The second time, he had been so anxious about what was going on back in Beacon Hills that he hadn’t noticed that flying itself was a little terrifying. It seemed weird to him that with all the stuff he had gone through that he would be _concerned_ with something people did every day. On the other hand, a lot of people were nervous about flying.

He took his phone out of his pocket and looked at it as he made his way to the boarding lounge. It wouldn’t be long now before they would be on the plane, and the phone would be nothing but an expensive paper weight. 

“Okay,” Stiles snapped. “Call them. Whoever they are.”

“What?” Scott looked up. “I’m not calling anyone.”

“You’ve looked at your phone every five minutes since we got up this morning. You may not have called anyone, but you want to. Who is it?” Stiles demanded. 

“Yeah, you have been.” Isaac came up behind him.

Scott didn’t blush, but he kept walking. It wasn’t something he wanted to discuss, but he knew sooner or later he was going to have to discuss it. He took a seat away from the other passengers. Stiles took the seat to his left and Isaac to his right. 

“Derek.” Scott said heavily.

Stiles nodded. “Man, that’s a tough call.” His smile was more like a grimace. “I’m glad that’s a decision _you_ have to make, Alpha.” 

Isaac pushed his tongue around his mouth before deciding not to say anything. Derek’s and Isaac’s relationship was still strained and weird. While they obviously cared about each other and there would always be a bond between them, both of them had issues with abandonment and loyalty. Isaac and Derek had never spoken one word to each other about shifting loyalties or broken glass, and so it sat them between like an unwanted package neither wanted to open.

“I mean, Peter is not Derek’s responsibility. If I call him and tell him what Peter has done, he might feel that it is.” Scott explained.

“Dude, it is kind of his responsibility,” Stiles remarked. “But then again …”

“If I don’t call him, he might take it as if I don’t trust him because Peter is his uncle,” Scott sighed. “Family …” His throat clenched because only after the word flops out of his mouth like porno mags falling out of his closet in front of his mother. He was sitting between two orphans.

Stiles snorted at him. “I’m not made of glass.” 

Isaac looked toward the ceiling and opened his mouth to say something. 

Stile interrupted quickly. “If you make a joke about it, Lahey, it’ll be _on_. And somewhere between here and New York, our bickering will cause Scott to snap, he’ll tear a hole in the plane, and we’ll all suffocate and die.” 

Isaac held up both hands. “Fine. I’ll mention nothing about your persistent fragile emotional state.”

Scott rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Anyways, I want to do the right thing here, but I’m not sure what that is. So, could you two stop sniping at each other and help me? Do you think I should tell him about what Peter is up to?” 

Stiles didn’t look sheepish at all but gave Isaac a glance that indicated that they would take it up later. “As I said before, it is partly Derek’s responsibility. Families look out for each other; they take care of each other. No matter what Peter’s done, Derek would want to be involved in this.”

Scott could understand that. You don’t give up on family, no matter how badly they’ve screwed up. 

Isaac, of course, had to take the opposite opinion. Scott wished he could put it down as he being contrary, but it wasn’t. He had a point. “No. Derek would feel he _had_ to be involved in this, but I lived with him, even when we thought that Peter was … reformed?” He shrugged eloquently. “Feeling obligated to help isn’t the same as wanting to help.” 

“You realize you two aren’t helping my problem at all,” Scott complained. “But you both think he’d come back if I told him, right?”

Stiles looked pensive. “The question is, do you want him to come back?” 

“Do you think he’ll get in the way?” Isaac added. 

Before the conversation could continue, they announced that the plane was boarding. Scott had frowned when Stiles and Isaac had cooed over the idea of first-class tickets. He guessed he was still sensitive about taking money from the Argents, even though Stiles, and then Isaac, and then his mother, and then Mr. Argent had all said he was being ridiculous. It just felt like a reward, and he hadn’t done anything to earn that reward.

As he settled down in the seat, he looked outside the plane. Well, he had the six-hour flight from San Francisco to New York to think about it. Or, if he still didn’t make up his mind, he could call Derek from Dublin or Berlin. Or, he could not call him at all.

First class was going to be amazing. Stiles claimed the window seat and Scott took the aisle seat next to him, while Isaac got the aisle seat directly across from them on the other side of the cabin. The taller man could lean over across the aisle and whisper when they needed to. 

“Man,” Stiles said. “This is nice. Much better than coach.”

Scott remember that sometimes in the summers, the Sheriff would take Stiles to visit relatives on the East Coast. They were his mother’s relatives. The sheriff had never spoken about his own relatives. Neither had Stiles.

The plane took off and, just as he remembered when he came home from France, there was a drop in his belly that made him grip the armrests of his seat. Luckily, he had practiced keeping his pulse rate low for a long time. It wouldn’t do for his anxiety about flying to trigger the change; that would be hard to explain.

When they were in the air, Isaac turned to him and whispered. “I think you shouldn’t call Derek.” It was low enough that Stiles demanded he repeat it. With a grumble, Scott made Stiles switch seats with him. Scott could easily hear Isaac from over there. 

“It’s a matter of keeping our priorities straight,” Isaac began again. “We’re going to find Peter, rescue the chimera, and get them home safely, right?”

Scott nodded in agreement. He remembered his discussion with Chris Argent, and he kept it close to his heart. The important thing was to rescue Hayden, Corey, and Josh. That, in itself, would thwart Peter and his necromancer ally’s plans. Arresting or – and Scott was aware this could happen – killing Peter or his necromancer ally was secondary. 

On the other hand, he only knew it was his plan. He wasn’t sure that Isaac didn’t have _his_ own plan. Isaac was an Argent hunter. It wouldn’t surprise Scott that if Isaac found an opportunity to kill Peter for good, he would take it. 

“Look. Derek is just going to complicate things,” Isaac explained, patiently. “If we involve him, he’s going to want to try to bring Peter to heel, to fix him, or to resolve the matter with him. That’s not our goal. Once we learn what Peter is up to, then we can talk to Derek. That’s just what I think.”

Scott thought about it with his head against the window. It was sound advice, and it hadn’t been far from what he was thinking, but it still didn’t sit well with him. He imagined how he would feel in Derek’s shoes.

“As much as it pains me to admit it, but Lahey is right.” Stiles muttered. “And as much as I think he should help, it’s clear that he doesn’t want to. Recently, I’ve been trying to focus on employing deductive reasoning rather than inductive reasoning, and all the evidence points to the idea that Derek is 1000% done with Peter. How many times did Derek visit Peter when he was imprisoned in Eichen House? When Derek was teaching you the full shift, did he ask about Peter?”

Scott grimaced. “No, he didn’t.”

“I think it’s clear – asking Derek for help with Peter might make us feel better but it isn’t going to make him feel better, even if he gets upset that we didn’t ask him. And those feelings are going to get in the way if we have to deal with them while trying to thwart Peter’s plans.” Stiles concluded.

Scott wished he could put Derek’s feelings first, but Isaac’s and Stiles’ reasoning was just too sound. This was the type of decision that he had to make; this was the type of decision he’d set himself up to make. He was going to have make more decisions just like this and face the consequences for those as well.

“I’ll call him when we know what Peter is doing and how to stop it.” Scott hoped that Derek wouldn’t take this as a lack of trust or lack of faith. 

They spent the next hour trying to get into some form of comfort so they could handle the cross-national flight. None of them felt the least bit tired, so it essentially became an excuse to watch television. All three of them had brought books, but they hadn’t cracked them open yet.

“Scott,” Isaac said suddenly, as if he finally pushed himself over the brink into expressing those words. “I’ve never heard about the rest of your family. You’ve got some, don’t you?”

Stiles froze in his seat, but that was only because he knew that this wasn’t comfortable territory for Scott. It wasn’t exactly tragic territory, either. There was no hidden monsters or house fires or car wrecks. It was worse than that, in a way.

“I’ve got them,” Scott answered. “I’ve got grandparents, an aunt, and an uncle, and four cousins on my mom’s side. Dad has two sisters, and though his mother is dead, his father’s still around. I think I have a couple cousins on that side, too.”

“You think?” Isaac asked, confused. It makes sense though. Mr. Lahey had been an only child and his parents were dead long before Isaac entered high school. The idea that Scott wouldn’t know about his extended family might seem weird to him.

It was, unfortunately, not weird at all. “Dad wasn’t Catholic.” Scott knew he should probably explain more, but maybe Isaac understood that some strict families considered marrying outside the faith not only a sin, but an insult. 

“But you and Melissa are Catholic.” Isaac inadvertently blundered into it. Into the isolation that his mother has felt every single day since she chose a man she thought she loved. Into the isolation that she pretended didn’t exist for Scott’s sake. He was thirteen before he realized that it was odd he never went to see his grandparents. 

“It wasn’t enough,” he admits. “Sometimes when you dig a moat to fight over because of one thing, you can never fill that moat back up again.” Melissa kept track of her family, but after the terrible fight over her marriage, she realized she didn’t need them. Anyone can get used to isolation.

Scott pushed on, because if he was going to share his family story, he might as well share all of it. Isaac was only the fourth person he had told this. “My father was estranged from his family. The funeral was the first time I’d seen them in ten years.” Rafael McCall was what many people politely called a ‘strong personality;’ other people just called him an asshole. That didn’t go away just because he was dealing with family.

“Oh.” Isaac seemed surprised by the information. Of course, he may not have realized that families can fall apart without freezers and shattered glass and pain, or families can be destroyed without tragedy. Sometimes they just withered.

“I still have a grandfather in Beacon County,” volunteered Stiles, “but he’s got Alzheimer’s disease. Dad never liked to visit him. He was a war hero.” Scott could leave it to Stiles to steer the conversation away. “My mom has a large family in Monmouth County. But flying to the other side of the States is expensive.” He winked, because that’s exactly what they were doing.

“They sent me letters, even when I was away.” Stiles continued, using the common euphemism for prison. “And I wrote them back. I’ve written to them since I could write as well as talking to them online but as cool as technology is today, it’s not the same. You can’t replace actually spending time with people with Skype. We’re not close, but we’re friendly. I’d help them, and they’d help me.” 

”That’s good.” Isaac smiled gently. “I always wondered what it would be like.”

“We’re not the best people to talk about family,” Scott said. And wasn’t that sad.

“Nonsense. We’re the best family,” Stiles scoffed. For a moment, he meant it to. Warmth spread through Scott like those times when they had snuck a little bit of Stiles’ dad’s whiskey. “But we aren’t the Hales.”

Scott noted the present tense. He made an inquiring sound; Isaac, too, was interested.

Stiles perked up; he always liked to be able to demonstrate his knowledge. “The thing you have to remember about the Hales is that they weren’t just an old and respected pack.” He kept his voice very low, knowing that Scott an Isaac could hear him just fine, but the other passengers wouldn’t be able to hear them. “They were also an old and respected family.”

“Deaton told me that when he first met the Hales, four generations were living in the same house. This isn’t necessarily a werewolf thing. If you were a Hale, you didn’t only see your grandma on the Holidays. Your uncle was the person who taught you how to drive a car. You babysat your cousins not as a special favor, but as an everyday chore. Us three, we’re single children of families that were eventually single parent. We can’t possibly understand that type of environment and what it means to someone like Derek.” 

Stiles continued. “Derek doesn’t like Peter, but he loves Peter. As Peter loves Derek and Cora. As Peter loved Laura.”

Isaac made a scoffing noise. “Luring her to her death? That was love?”

“Elie Wiesel said that the opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference. Peter was so full of rage and hate when he woke up for everyone that the people he loved the most was the ones he was the angriest at. To his mind, she had left him.”

Scott had been listening very closely as Stiles held forth. He turned and caught Stiles’ eye. A silent moment passed between them.

“Yeah,” Stiles repeated. “It’s the ones you love the most that make you the angriest.” 

“It just sounds like an excuse, like saying Peter was insane.” Isaac muttered. 

“Well, he kinda was,” Scott interrupted. “No matter how much we might dislike him, we have to recognize that he had gone through an awful lot.”

“None of which is an excuse!” Isaac answered. “He was sane enough to evade capture. He was sane enough to evade detection. He taught his nurse enough werewolf etiquette so she could lure Laura all the way across the country.” 

Stiles agreed but gave Isaac an intriguing glance. “Isaac’s right again, Scott. He might have been unstable, but he understood enough not to bite a random deputy who was out in the woods. He bit you because you were young and alone. He was also sane enough to avoid being identified by the police, by the Argents, and by his own nephew. He knew what he was doing and he knew right from wrong.” 

Scott didn’t feel ganged up on too much. “Okay. It was just easier for me to think of him as insane back then.”

“Why?” asked Stiles. 

“Because if he was sane that meant it wasn’t an accident. He bit me on purpose, even though he didn’t know my name or anything about me. He took the first dumbass teenager he thought he could manipulate.”

“And it sucks to be him, because he picked _you_ ,” responded Stiles. He turned to Isaac. “Do a lot of reading on the insanity defense?”

“It’s a required part of the training. Back when the Code was ‘We hunt those who hunt us,’ it was important to determine if a werewolf actually hunted someone before they killed them. The idea was that no one would use the Argents as a weapon against werewolves they didn’t like. Now that the Code is “We protect those who cannot protect themselves,’ we protect those who have lost control of themselves.”

“That’s good.” Scott said with feeling. “That’s very good.”

“It is?” Stiles asked. 

“We’re going to have to make decisions like that in the future. I’m glad one of us has had training in it.” Scott was being serious. He meant to do good, and that meant being able to understand people.

The conversation turned to more trivial topics about which, in ninety percent, Isaac and Stiles violently disagreed. Scott was sure that they did it as a matter of habit and familiarity rather than one of outright hostility. It was weirdly comforting, but eventually there was a lull in the conversation. 

Scott leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. He wanted to try something. He had wanted to try it ever since he learned he could do it. After he had awoken from his coma, he found that if he focused on the bonds between pack members, he could see them, wherever they were. The Skin-walkers had called it Spirit Walking. He had practiced from time to time over his months of training, with Lydia, with Liam, with Malia. 

Today. Right now, he wanted to see if he could find Derek. He considered Derek pack, even if was never sure if Derek considered him his alpha or not. Derek didn’t need to submit to be someone Scott cared about. He had always been there for the pack, and the pack would be there for him. 

If anything was true, it was that Scott wasn’t a traditionalist. Derek could be pack and not his beta.

**Scott’s eyes flew open and he realized he was not on the plane anymore. He was on a beach. “It worked!” He gave himself a mental fist pump. He was standing on top of a dune that was at least seventy feet high, looking down on Derek who was, strangely enough, relaxing on a beach chaise.**

**As Scott got closer he couldn’t help but smile. Derek was dressed in shorts and a Hawaiian-style shirt with a straw hat to keep the sun out of his eyes. He had a book open and was reading carefully. He looked relaxed. He looked comfortable. There was even a beer in the sand next to him.**

**He wasn’t alone either. In another chaise next to him was Braeden clad in a white bikini that made Scott blush and look away. She was very attractive, but it was clear that she was with Derek and even though he could not be sensed, it was still creepy to stare. She was leafing through what looked like some sort of reports on a tablet.**

**Glancing up, he could see Cora and Malia in the ocean. It looked like Cora was trying to teach Malia to surf, and it wasn’t going well. It looked like the cousins were having a lot of fun.**

**It was a family on vacation.**

**Derek looked up over the edge of his book at Malia attempting to drown Cora for making her try this. It looked like it was going to be a difficult struggle. A smile crept into the corners of his mouth, a real smile, the one that Scott had seen so seldom on Derek’s face. He glanced over to where Braeden was listlessly sifting through pages.**

**Scott watches as Derek reaches over and hits the power button on the tablet as Braeden makes an exasperate snort. She looks up at him, demanding an explanation.**

**“Let’s go make sure the girls don’t drown each other before they actually get around to surfing,” he suggests. There’s a teasing tone in the voice, but also a secret request.**

**Braeden slides so she is sitting up on the chaise. She looks torn; mutinous but with a glance toward the ocean that said she wouldn’t really object.**

**“She’ll keep.” Derek states. It is simple and direct. The darkness out in the world will keep until another day.**

Scott begins to feel a little bit like he’s eavesdropping. He awoke on the plane, somewhere over the Appalachians. 

Scott felt content with his decision. Derek was getting what he deserved and had deserved for so long. A real family. Real peace. Maybe something more. There was no doubt in Scott’s mind that disturbing that knot of happy people on the beach would be the wrong thing to do.

It was his responsibility, anyway. “I’m the alpha now,” he muttered towards the window.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the layover in New York City, the pack reunites with one of their members. Unfortunately, Lydia has bad news for everyone.

New York City shivered in the blustery cold, dusted with light snow. The weather hadn’t been enough to delay their flight; John F. Kennedy International Airport required worse conditions than that. Scott thought the gray skies made the city look dreary, and he wasn’t looking forward to the nine-hour layover. Airport terminals were uncomfortable enough for human beings, let alone a supernatural creature with heightened senses. Especially a sense of smell.

The three of them had decided not to leave the airport, as none of them knew the city at all. Getting lost was not impossible to imagine, and missing their plane would be a disaster. They prepared to spend the entire layover in the terminal. Stiles joked that could have starred in the remake of that Tom Hanks movie.

They did not expect to find Lydia Martin waiting for them. She looked astounding, her pale skin and red hair contrasting with the black fur coat and hate she wore. Beneath the coat was a scarlet dress and high-heeled boots. Frankly, it was like a supermodel shooting a travel advertisement.

Scott felt a grin burst out of him as he sprinted up to her. “Lydia! You look great!”

“Obviously,” she replied. Her smile wasn’t as wide as his. She reached out and took both of his hands and squeezed them. Her grip wasn’t as strong as his. She had not yet fully recovered.

“How did you know we were coming?” Scott asked. He hoped it wasn’t a premonition. 

“I know everything,” she replied deadpan. “Including your mother’s phone number.” 

Isaac laughed out loud and stepped forward to greet her. Stiles hesitated; this was the first time he had seen her since Theo had broken her mind. 

“Isaac. Stiles.” Lydia paused as if she was considering saying something more but then turned back to Scott. Stiles’ face fell in response. “Today’s itinerary is simple. We spend a couple of hours shopping; you are certainly not going to Europe looking like this year’s frat pledge class and then I take you out to dinner. I won’t hear a word against it.” 

No one argued against it; they knew what a lost cause looked like. Scott recognized the determined look on her face. Shopping was an environment with certain rules and actions that could be navigated. For Lydia, it was a safe space. It was the perfect way to reconnect.

After spending six hours cooped up on a plane, the shopping trip was a nice change. It wasn’t until the second shop, where Lydia attempted to guilt them into buying “Real shoes, not the bottom of the Payless bargain bin” that Scott first picked up on the unpleasant undercurrent. On the surface, there was banter and lightness between all four of them. If he hadn’t know them intimately, he might have thought that they were having a blast.

But there was something going on between Stiles and Lydia. To the casual observer, Lydia wasn’t snubbing Stiles. She spoke to him in the same tone she used with Scott and Isaac, and she made eye contact in the same manner. But Scott could tell what _wasn’t_ happening. In the past, Stiles and Lydia always had this hidden drift towards each other, like a weak magnetism, though it was frequently covered up by their easy camaraderie. They were friends, first and foremost, and this friendship expressed itself in a teasing competition but also a reliance on the intellect of the other. They complemented each other continually with only sudden outbursts of attraction.

That camaraderie was now gone, or, rather, Lydia stomped on any instances of it like she would put out a cigarette with one incredibly tall heel. She had chosen this environment, and she was making sure that nothing she didn’t want to happen was going to happen. And it seemed to Scott that she didn’t want any echo of her old relationship to Stiles to happen.

Scott could feel Stiles getting frustrated. Stiles wanted to do what he did best; he wanted to talk, but there was no opening for him to talk to her. She was freezing him out by treating him the same way she treated Isaac. It was a gentle rebuke.

When Scott realized that this couldn’t go on without a confrontation, he put an end to it. “Lydia, I love the shoes, but do you want to talk to us about why you needed to speak with us?”

“Who said I needed to speak to you?” Lydia was examining a pair of ridiculously expensive loafers. 

“You drove down from Cambridge in the middle of a school week to talk to us after calling my mother.” Scott replied, casually. “I know you love us, but this tells me something is up.”

“There is.” Lydia replied with a sigh. “But I’m not talking about it in a shoe store. We’ll go to my favorite restaurant. They accept any fake ID without question if you slip them a twenty and you don’t look like you listen to Miley Cyrus. I’m going to need some wine for this.”

It was only three-thirty when they got to the restaurant, which was good because not only was it expensive and snooty but if they had tried to get a table in the evening, they would have had to call three weeks in advance. Lydia had her favorite table, and she let the group settle in before she started talking. Scott grimaced because there were no prices on the menu. He ordered something that sounded inexpensive.

With a glass of wine in hand, Lydia observed the three of them. “I want you to explain what you’re doing first, so I can figure out if what I heard has anything to do with it.” 

Scott thought about explaining it himself, but it struck him that this would be a perfect opportunity to overcome the strange remoteness between his two friends. “Stiles, go ahead.”

Stiles looked up from his plate. He had been gazing at it since they had sat down, looking at it for answers. He caught Scott’s eye and gave him a little smile. He started in on the story of Peter’s actions in Beacon Hills, the mahrts, the possibility of a necromancer, and the idea that he had kidnapped only resurrected chimera. 

Lydia listened to the whole tale, her face slightly sour, but she did not comment. Only near the end did she start tapping one finger. When Stiles was finished, she took up her wine glass and drained it. “Peter, what are you doing?”

“What are you hearing?” Stiles asked impatiently.

“My explanation is going to have to be a little technical. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what I can do, and I’ve come to certain conclusions.” Lydia began. “It all started because of that Tesla quote that Valack shared with us about frequency, energy and vibration. Then I remembered what Deaton said about life being energy, and the fact that energy is never destroyed. It simply changes.”

Lydia put her glass down. “I suspect that when a person dies, the energy that comprises their consciousness – you can call it the soul if you want – leaves this dimension and enters another. When a banshee hears death approaching, it is similar to a physicist tracing high-energy particles in a spark chamber. As the soul approaches the barrier between dimensions – the Between or Bardo or various other names – it leaves traces which expand both before and after the event. As a banshee learns to control her powers, she learns to interpret those traces, as a physicist interprets the qualities of the particle by how it reacts to collisions.”

“You’ve put a lot thought into this,” Scott admired. Isaac and Stiles were pretty impressed as well.

“I got tired of not understanding what I was doing. I’m a scientist, not a poet.” Lydia snorted. “Since New Year’s, more and more, I’ve been getting what can only be described as feedback.”

Stiles spoke up. “Like when you bring a microphone too close to a speaker. When output gets treated as input, it distorts the process.” He was riffing on what Lydia was saying, but he was only rewarded by a scowl.

“Yes, Stiles.” There was no playful riposte in her words. She was truly annoyed. “I think whatever Peter is trying to do, it has to do with the Between. It’s going to be as dangerous as what the Doctors were trying to do. The chimeras were truly dead, and now they aren’t.” 

“Well, Stiles, Allison …” Scott hesitated. “… and I were dead as well.”

“You see. I don’t think you were. I didn’t scream for you. I think you entered Bardo, but you didn’t actually cross that barrier, not like the chimera did. You were suspended between life and death. You didn’t really die.” Lydia said quietly. 

“You didn’t scream for the chimera either,” Stiles pointed out, not a little triumphantly. “Which I always thought was pretty odd.”

Lydia locked eyes with Stiles, and it was not a good stare. Stiles dropped his eyes to his plate. “Well, _now_ you point that out. But you are right. I screamed for the Darach’s victims, but I didn’t scream for Tracy or Lucas or Donovan or any of them.” The subtle emphasis she put on Donovan’s name made Stiles flinch. “I know the Doctors gave them a specific frequency. They may have done that not only to find them but also to shield them from me.” 

Isaac nodded. “It only makes sense that they’d take precautions. Not to sound callous, but a banshee is a very useful thing to have around.” 

“Why, thank you,” Lydia responded, genuinely. She picked up a knife to start cutting into her entrée. Scott wasn’t sure what it was. 

Stiles snorted. “That was pretty dickish, Lahey. She’s a person, not an alarm system.”

Lydia turned to Stiles. “When I need you to defend me, I’ll ask you.” Her voice was cold. 

Scott opened his mouth because he was suddenly aware of the bomb at the table. He had been listening so carefully to what his pack had to say that he had completely missed the underlying tension between Stiles and Lydia. It was about to explode, and he needed to defuse it.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Lydia?” Stiles snapped. Scott had been too late. “You’ve been at me since we got here.”

Lydia’s eyes blazed with an uncomfortable level of fury. Icily, she put down her knife. “You want to do this here? You want to do this now?”

“Guys,” Scott said cautiously, watching the other tables, “we’re not in high school anymore, so maybe we shouldn’t have this discussion in public.” 

“It’s New York City, Scott,” Lydia said acidly. “No one pays attention to anyone else here. That would be gauche.” 

Stiles always had two responses on hand when facing a confrontation he did not want to have. The first was deflection; Stiles was a world-class master of the art of changing the subject. The second was full-out emotional assault. Stiles had grown in the last few years as a person, but really only in terms of the range of things he wanted to confront. Lydia Martin’s anger was not one of those things.

“Well, I’m glad you know everything, Lydia,” he started. “Because maybe you might want to share some of it with us less enlightened folk.” 

Lydia’s nails rapped the edge of her plate in irritation. She pinned Stiles with a look so cold that Scott opened his mouth to try to intervene once again. She held up a hand to stop him without looking at him. “I can certainly handle this myself, McCall. It’s better we get this done here and now so the pack can move forward.”

“Yes, Stiles.” Her voice dripped with bitterness. “I know everything. Dr. Valack amplified my powers to the point where I heard everything, and I spent five months in Bardo figuring out what the things I heard meant. So I do know how you lied to me. I do know how you conspired with Theo. I do know how you delayed our investigations out of some misplaced, misguided guilt. I do know how you tried to blame Scott; I do know how you put Scott in a coma. I listened to you destroy our pack because you were too much of a baby to talk to anyone.”

Stiles dropped his eyes. “I didn’t conspire with Theo …”

“You did, Stiles. You hid Josh Diaz’s death from the police and your father because Theo blackmailed you. You stood there in the back room of the animal clinic with the body and lied to Scott’s face by not saying anything. And you stalled me from contacting Parrish because you were afraid of what would be at the Nemeton, though I’m not sure if you were doing that on Theo’s behalf or on your own.”

Scott opened his mouth once again, but this time Isaac grabbed his knee under the table and shook his head. He wondered if Isaac thought he needed to let her speak or if he was enjoying the tongue-lashing Lydia was delivering.

“How could you think ...” Stiles began and then smoothed his lips into a thin line. “I didn’t want Parrish to find the Nemeton because I was afraid that the truth about Donovan would get out.”

“Unsurprising, Stiles. As clever as you are, the fact that you can be so _stupid_ never ceases to amaze me. If Parrish hadn’t remembered taking Donovan’s body there, why would he suddenly know that you were responsible for his death? In fact, if you had let him find it, you could have used the opportunity to cover up what had happened even more.” She popped a shrimp into her mouth, a signal for him to explain himself.

“I’m sorry; you have to know I’m sorry for everything that happened. I wrote to you and I explained where I was.” Stiles was less combative, more careful. “I never meant to hurt anyone …”

“Of course you didn’t mean to, Stiles; you just didn’t think.” Lydia’s voice was harsh. “You didn’t think about anyone but yourself, yet everyone, including you, got to pay the price for that, didn’t they?”

“I had just killed …”

Lydia interrupted. “Let’s not start talking body counts, Stiles. You aren’t going to win that contest. If you get to throw a self-serving pity parade for killing one person, then I get to have a yearly jamboree. Do you know how many patients and staff I killed when my scream brought down Eichen House?” 

Stiles paled. In fact, Scott felt pretty sick at the moment. He had been so glad to get Lydia back, he hadn’t connected really thought about the source of that tragedy. She’d been broken by Theo, imprisoned in Eichen House, experimented on by Dr. Valack, and then carried away to a place between life and death. It hadn’t occurred to him that she blamed herself for any of it.

“Lydia, that wasn’t your fault.” Stiles echoed what Scott was thinking. “You can’t blame yourself.”

“I don’t blame myself, Stiles. I blame _you_.” Lydia said sharply, like she was dismissing a poorly dressed freshman. “That hundreds of people are dead is not my fault any more than Donovan’s death was your fault. What is your fault are the lies you told. What is your fault is the way you destroyed our pack so you could feel better about yourself. What is your fault was you putting Scott in a coma and then getting yourself arrested so you couldn’t save me before some madman drilled my head open!” 

Scott broke in to the conversation. “That wasn’t Stiles. That was Theo.” 

“Bullshit.” Lydia spat. “Stiles is always right, isn’t he? After all, he had pegged Theo from the start, isn’t that true?” She turned to Scott in her fury. "Scott, you were there when Stiles tried to blame you for this, both times. He made you his scapegoat, as he’s always done, like the whiny, spineless little boy he’s always been. He must have loved it when you became alpha; now he had someone to pin _all_ his mistakes on.”

Stiles looked stricken. He had avoided talking about Lydia since he had been released, but he had written her and e-mailed her. She had never replied, but hope had remained. That hope was dying in this exquisite restaurant.

“I’m not interested in your apologies, Stiles,” she sneered. “I’m not interested in you at all. I’m not interested in someone who pretended to be my friend, but really wasn’t. Because friends trust each other, Stiles, they believe in each other. You didn’t believe in Scott, and you certainly didn’t believe in me. You didn’t trust me. So why in the name of hell should I trust you now?”

The tension and misery flooded throughout the table and poisoned the food. Scott stared at his plate as if he could find a solution there. If there was something he could say that could fix everything. Words escaped him.

Stiles’ face contorted and he stood up violently, the chair scraping back against the floor. His fists were clenched, but it didn’t seem to Scott that he was angry. It was like he was trying to hold himself together.

Lydia glanced over the top of her glass. “Yes. I do think it’s best that you go. Don’t you?”

Stiles left the table and then the restaurant. At least he had something to eat. Scott wanted to follow him, but he also needed to talk to Lydia. This was a fracture that he hadn’t foreseen and it was a bad one. Scott gestured with his chin to Isaac, who got up much more quietly and followed him.

Lydia was nonchalantly eating her dinner until she realized that Scott was staring at her. “I don’t think that there’s much more to say. Your dinner’s getting cold.”

“There’s a lot to say. It wasn’t easy for any of us. I made mistakes, as well. If we’re going to move forward, we have to be willing to give people another chance.”

“I gave him another chance, Scott.” She said brusquely. “Remember sophomore year where everyone kept me in the dark to protect me, and as a result I got used by Peter? This was his second chance; I let him inside; we became friends. We might have become something more. Then he hid things from me. He kept important things from me. And these important things led me into the same mental institution that killed my grandmother and almost killed me.”

“He wasn’t in a good place. I’m sure that if he knew what was going to happen he wouldn’t have kept things from you. He was just obsessed …”

“He was thinking about himself. He barely gave a thought about how his actions would affect the pack. You remember your confrontation in the rain outside the animal clinic?” 

Scott spread his hands out. He didn’t like thinking about that moment. “We both did things that night that we shouldn’t be proud of.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “Do you remember what he said to you? I heard the echoes, clear as day. He wasn’t actually speaking to you. He said ‘some of us have to make mistakes’ when he just watched you enter Corey’s mind. He said that to you when he was convinced you had made a mistake in trusting Theo. He wasn’t talking to you at all; he was talking to an image of you that would condemn him.” 

“I remember. I know where it came from – his mother, the nogitsune.”

“He’s been through a lot, but we’ve _all_ been through a lot. It doesn’t justify one thing he did to anyone else.” Lydia made an exasperate noise. “If you had treated me the way he did, I wouldn’t want you in my life either.”

“He loves you.” Scott said simply. “You mean a lot to him.”

“No. He loves his ten-year plan. He loves the idea of achieving me, like I was Princess Zelda. If he loved me, he never would have lied to me.” Lydia put her fork down. “And that’s all there is to it.”

Scott watched her, playing with his food. His appetite had vanished. “Is that why you won’t go with us?” 

Lydia raised her eyebrow. “Smarter than you look, McCall. Yes. I’m sure that what I’m feeling has to do with what Peter is up to. Stiles is right enough about that. But the fact remains that I’m still physically weak and the feedback is distorting what I hear. I’m not egotistical enough to demand to go with you when I don’t think I’m going to be any help.”

“You’re always a help, Lydia. You know how much I have relied on you, and you never let me down.”

“I’m still going to help. This is the 21st century, and my hearing really isn’t dependent on distance if you’re present.” Lydia explained. “And right now is not the best time for Stiles and I to work on our problems.”

“He’s my Emissary, Lydia. He always will be, if I have anything to say about it.” Scott said it simply so there would be no misunderstanding. 

“And I’ll deal with that. Mature adults can work with people without liking them. The question is if Stiles can accept that I don’t want to be his friend.” Lydia took a drink. “You know he’s always had trouble when he doesn’t get what he wants.”

Scott took a deep breath. He couldn’t think of a way to fix this. Maybe it wasn’t his place to fix this. “I will keep in touch with you. If you discover anything else, if you even have a funny feeling, I want you to contact me immediately. Nothing is too trivial.” Lydia nodded in agreement. He then looked down at the meals. “Would it be rude to get these dinners to go?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_detector for information on what Lydia was talking about.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles and Scott have pass the time on the cross-Atlantic flight by reconnecting.

The 787 was quiet as it winged its way over the Atlantic. Most of the passengers in first class had either fallen asleep or were getting there very quickly. Across the aisle, Isaac’s book had fallen into his lap, and he was gently snoring. 

Transatlantic flights can be tests of endurance, especially if you’ve never mastered the art of sleeping on demand. In order to pass the time, Scott had attempted to watch a movie about baseball starring Brad Pitt. He honestly tried to pay attention to it, he really had, but the idea of worrying whether statistical analysis was a better form of baseball management or whatever the hell the movie was about could not hold him. Instead, he watched out of the corner of his eye as Stiles slowly folded in on himself. Stiles was trying to process the confrontation with Lydia. Scott could tell that Stiles was beginning to obsess over it by his body language alone.

Eventually, he put a hand on Stiles’ arm to reassure him. “Don’t worry about it.” He tried to make it as reassuring as a whisper could be. If Stiles could stop thinking about it, maybe he could sleep.

“Lydia essentially told me I’m a scumbag, and she doesn’t want to talk to me anymore. I think this deserves more than worry. It deserves a serious amount of self-reproach, copious amounts of self-loathing, and a tiny bit of existential angst.” Stiles turned to face him, and Scott could see the dry, red rimmed eyes of someone who had wanted to cry but wouldn’t let themselves do it.

“She was angry. People say a lot of things when they’re angry that they don’t really mean.” 

“She wasn’t just angry, Scott. She hates me.” Stiles sighed. “And I can’t blame her.”

“Well, _now_ she hates you.” Scott tried to sound hopeful. “That’s not necessarily a permanent situation.”

Stiles raised both eyebrows at him, as if to question Scott’s sanity. Scott didn’t think he was being overly optimistic. 

Scott shrugged in return. “This was the first time you saw her since everything went bad. She’s angry with you, and she _finally_ got to express that anger. Imagine bottling that up for months? But, you have to remember she liked you once, and you’re still the same person. She could like you again.” 

“You heard her go off on me; it wasn’t a bottle being opened, it was like a dam had burst. This was everything she had wanted to say to me since she figured out what happened, and she didn’t say one good thing about me in that entire performance.” Stiles shook his head. “How does she get from feeling that way to liking me again? How do I make something as ridiculously impossible as that happen? To top it all off, there’s logistics involved. It’s not like we’re attending the same school; more often than not I’m thousands of miles away from her. I have to face the truth; there’s no chance for me to win her back.”

“I’m not saying that it won’t take a while, but you’ll have plenty of time to make her remember why she likes you.” There was only so many ways he could be encouraging.

“Scott, the worst part for me is that what she said was true. I did lie to her; I lied to all of you.” Stiles glanced out the window to the night-bound ocean. “You know what’s funny? Even as I did it, I _knew_ it was the wrong thing to do. I knew down deep that all I had to do was tell you. I knew down deep that all I had to do was tell her. Did you know that Malia figured it out?”

“Huh. No, I didn’t.” It wasn’t surprising to Scott, though. Malia was smarter than people believed. It was an advantage to be in touch with your instincts as much as she was; it made it harder for people to use her own expectations to confuse her. 

“She didn’t say anything, because I didn’t say anything, and I was so … I was so disappointed in her that she didn’t say anything. That she didn’t condemn me for what I’d done.” Stiles laughed. “This was right after I screamed at you. That’s when we broke up. Or, more accurately, that’s when I dumped her.”

“I … I don’t understand.” Scott said, honestly. 

“I guess I was stuck, and I resented things changing without me having control of them. I didn’t want what had happened to him to have happened, and I didn’t want what was going to happen when people found about what had happened to him to happen. I just wanted it to go away. I guess I felt that if I could keep it from you, from all of you, long enough, it would _go away._ ” 

Scott cocked his head to the side. He knew what that urge felt like. For a few weeks he had told himself that if he didn’t act like a werewolf, he wouldn’t actually be one. It hadn’t worked. 

“It didn’t even occur to me that Lydia would be the one who would really have a problem with what I had done, but … maybe she expected better from me. She certainly let me know that I _disappointed_ her.”

“Oh,” Scott said. “She was right to yell at you, but she wasn’t yelling at you just because of what you did. You understand that right?”

“Huh?” It was Stiles’ turn not to understand.

“Who has she had to talk to about what happened? I don’t mean in e-mails and letters, but someone she could sit down with and share her feelings and have them understood. If she had been in Beacon Hills, there would have been plenty of people she could talk to. But in Cambridge? Her mom pretends that this stuff isn’t real. Where was she going to find someone to talk about her time stuck between worlds at MIT?” Scott laughed. “Somehow I don’t think you realize how lucky I was to have you. To have someone that I could talk to about everything openly and honestly, even when it was dangerous.”

“I didn’t think of that.” Stiles answered.

“Of course, you wouldn’t think that she needed that. You’ve always put her on a pedestal.” 

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Of course, I put her on a pedestal! She deserves to be on a pedestal. She was everything I wanted, Scott.” He looked around, realizing he might have gotten a little too loud.

Scott shrugged. “You can’t make people into objects ….”

“I don’t mean as in a prize I could win. I meant … she was someone to whom I could prove myself worthy. If I could get Lydia Martin to love me, then I could do anything. I could be anything.” Stiles rubbed his face and then looked at Scott like he needed him to understand. “Yeah, I know it’s kind of fucked up, but I don’t think you can understand what it’s like to be around people who are better than you. To know that you’re damaged goods.” 

Scott stared at him. Did Stiles really still think like that?

Stiles watched him staring. “You don’t get it, do you? To be the weak link …”

“Dude, this is going to sound like I’m contradicting myself, but if you think that we’re better than you, you are fucking stupid. Why do you think that I’m better than you?” 

“Uh. Because you are. You’re a better person; I’ve told you that before.”

“Yes, you have, but I still don’t believe it. Yes, you made mistakes. I made mistakes. Lydia made mistakes … don’t tell her I said that.” It was only partially a joke on Scott’s part. 

“Scott.” Stiles shook the hand off his arm. “There’s a difference between your mistakes and my mistakes. My mistakes have killed people. A lot of people, including my dad. Don’t say that I didn’t.”

“You don’t know that,” Scott insisted. “You don’t know what could have been, so holding yourself accountable for what happened to your father is wrong. The only person responsible for that is Theo. Look, neither of us were in a situation where we had any idea what we were doing, but we did our best. I’m not better than you.”

“You’re a True Alpha, Scott.” Stiles jerked his head to make a point. “That’s a pretty clear indicator that you are, in fact, better than me.”

“I still don’t know what that means!” Scott spoke too loudly, disturbing some of the other passengers and getting a glare from the steward. He lowered his voice to continue the discussion. “I really don’t know what that means. It doesn’t mean I’m stronger than other alphas. I’m not smarter than they are. I’m not wiser than anyone else – God knows I’m not infallible. As far as I can tell, all it means was that, for a little while, I was stubborn about the right things.”

Stiles watched him with disbelief. “You’re an idiot.”

“And remember this,” Scott leaned forward so his face was near Stiles. “There’s another reason that I’m a True Alpha, and that’s because someone kept me alive long enough to become one. So, if my True Alpha status makes me a great person, it makes you one as well.”

“You’re an enormous idiot. You can’t see it, can you?” Stiles replied. “Results matter, Scott. You can’t say we’re the same.” 

“We’re not the same. I’m denying that this makes me better than you.” Scott took a breath to calm himself down. 

The conversation trailed off as they simultaneously decided not to get into a shouting match. Scot thought it was a good conversation, and he could see Stiles mull over the words in his head. Scott also hoped that Lydia would come around; she had needed to express her feelings, and she had done so. The boil had been lanced.

Sleep still evaded him. He could hear the heartbeats in the plane, and Stiles’ heartbeat most of all. As long as his friend was awake, he would be as well. 

After another half hour, Scott broke the silence again. “I think you need to talk to someone.”

Stiles looked mutinous because he knew exactly what Scott was talking about. “Maybe you need to talk to someone!” He whispered back aggressively. 

“That was mature, but for your information, I did talk to someone. One of the alphas I visited actually had a degree in psychology.” Scott replied. “I didn’t tell you, because … well, it was private.”

Stiles swallowed. “What did you have to talk about?”

“Lots of things.” Scott decided not to share certain things. He didn’t want to tell Stiles about the times he thought about running away or worse. People needed to believe in him. “She talked about alienation and how it could make us act as if certain things were true that actually weren’t.”

Stiles raised an eyebrow; he was curious.

“She was worried about me. She said that bitten wolves go through a period of adjustment, as they stop being one thing and start being another. It can make them feel like they don’t belong anywhere – they’re not human any more, but they don’t feel like a real werewolf. In response, they frequently act as if the wolf is a separate part of themselves. But that isn’t true; the Bite doesn’t create another personality. She explained that most alphas instinctually give bitten wolves more attention and affection as the betas come to terms with it.”

“Which you did with Liam.” Stiles snorted. “Peter wasn’t the very affectionate type.”

“That’s kind of why she was worried. Given the nature of my Bite and the quickness of my rise to Alpha status, she was afraid that I’d do something like create an unrealistic image of how I should act.”

“No,” said Stiles, drily. “Really.”

Scott looked at him in exasperation. “Can you be serious for once? She told me that I had to make sure that I didn’t think that I had to become an alpha completely. She said that alpha was a position of responsibility and that it came with a great deal of power, but it couldn’t be everything I was.” 

“I remember saying something similar,” Stiles smirked.

“You did.” Scott reached over and pulled Stiles head so it was touching his. “They’re the kindest words you ever said to me. I may not have taken your advice then, but I’m taking it now.” 

“That’s why you came to the jail.” Stiles blinked suddenly as if something had only now occurred to him. 

“I guess.” Scott released Stiles’ head. “I need to remember that I’m more than an alpha. And you need to remember that you’re more than what’s happened to you. You always have been more.” 

Stiles fell silent and shifted in his seat. Scott hung back. He wasn’t going to press, and he had said what he wanted to say. If Stiles wanted to talk, he would talk. More time passed; it wasn’t like the trip would get any shorter.

“Maybe I _should_ talk about it with someone.” Stiles said finally. “I mean, after it ….” He didn’t need to say what ‘it’ was, they both knew. “After it, my father wanted me to see someone, and I refused. I convinced him I was fine.”

“You certainly seemed fine back then,” Scott said. “You were amazing! You certainly were in better shape than me. Without you, I …”

“I wasn’t fine, Scott. I simply pretended to be.” Stiles shrugged. “I practiced ignoring everything until I could pretend it never actually happened. Then … Theo and Donovan.”

Scott frowned. Of course, Stiles would pretend to be okay when he wasn’t. Scott really wanted him to see that he had a right not to be okay, that it wasn’t weakness and it didn’t make him a bad person. 

“Yeah.” Stiles shrugged. He couldn’t go on. He never could talk comfortably about his own head. Those two names were all he could say. 

Scott sat in the middle of the night. It was probably due to the blow-up with Lydia and the fact that they were trapped with little to do over the Atlantic Ocean, but this was the most they had talked about things they never really wanted to talk about in a long time. 

“Dude, do you remember the night Boyd died?” 

Stiles nodded slowly. They hadn’t talked about it much. “I remember.”

“I never told you that I kind of blamed myself for that.” Scott looked out the window. “It was, when I think back on it, the first decision I made that cost someone their life.”

“What? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I made the decision to split us up. Deaton was saved, and Boyd wasn’t.” Scott explained.

Stiles’ eyes did that googly thing when he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You made the best possible call with the information you had. You did the best you could as a beta. We saved Deaton. If you had gone to the loft, do you think you could have changed the outcome? You couldn’t have.”

“You might be right. It still seemed like my call, though.” Scott smiled. “I didn’t realize until later that it was easier to blame myself for Boyd’s death than to say that there was nothing I could do about it. It was also a way to convince myself I shouldn’t be an alpha.”

Stiles snorted once again. “You are the best alpha.”

“Ehn.” Scott shimmied his hand back and forth to indicate so-so. “But my point is this: you and I did the same thing. We took something we couldn’t deal with and turned it into something that we could deal with – even if that new something was bad for us; even if it meant torturing ourselves. And we haven’t done it just once.”

Stiles nodded. “No, we haven’t. We’re probably going to do it again, aren’t we?” 

“I hope not. I hope we’re growing out of it.” Scott hummed for a moment. It was so good to talk openly like this – to talk like they used to – that he didn’t want it to stop. “You didn’t blame yourself for Allison, did you?” 

“No.” Stiles denied it, but he knew his heart gave him away. “Maybe a little. Yes.”

“You’re past that now, I hope.”

“I am. It was either understand the line between it and me or go insane.” 

“That’s good. Because I know that Allison’s death is my responsibility.” Before Stiles could object, Scott went on. “It’s not my fault, but it’s my responsibility. I’m learning to understand the difference. I’m going to lead people into places where they could get killed, I have to be prepared for people to die.”

Stiles nodded. “My dad said something about that after Matt attacked the station. That cops died wasn’t his fault, and he couldn’t afford to act like it was.”

“Yeah. Exactly that. And you have to do the same thing. You have to promise me, Stiles, that you’ll stop taking the mistakes you make and the tragedies you experience and making them a reflection of your own worth. You knew what the nogitsune did wasn’t you. You knew that Donovan was self-defense.” They had finally talked about it one night in Mexico when Stiles had been really, really drunk and Scott had only been slightly buzzed. 

“I can’t help how I feel.” Stiles said quietly. “I keep telling you I’m not like you.”

“You’re not, but that doesn’t mean I’m better. Just promise me you won’t let your feelings control you.” Scott reached out to touch him once again. “We’re on a jet plane heading to Europe. We’re going to be facing things that I didn’t even know existed a week ago in a country where none of us speaks the language. Peter Hale is waiting for us. I need to know that you trust me, Stiles, to lead you. I need to know that you trust me to love you, no matter what. I need to know that you trust yourself.” 

Stiles bit his lip. “I’ll try.” 

“That’s all I can ask.”

“Are you guys going to hug now?” Isaac asked from his seat across the aisle.

Scott rolled his eyes, and Stiles whispered back. “Look at who can’t stop being a douchebag even in his sleep. We were having a private conversation between people who knew each other when you were still losing badly at Pokemon.” 

Isaac opened his eyes and said so Stiles could hear. “He likes me better than you.”

“No, you over-tall scarf-rack, he just fucks you.” Stiles retorted, but he made sure that Isaac could tell he was smiling. 

“To-may-to. To-mah-to.”

Scott offered the offended steward an apologetic smile. “Could you guys stop?” 

Isaac stood up and slid over to where they were sitting so they could talk more quietly. The steward glared at them, but there was no reason Isaac couldn’t sit on the floor, as long as he wasn’t blocking anyone’s path. “So, I heard what you were talking about.”

Stiles nodded as if it was an accusation. “Yeah. Rude much?”

Isaac shrugged elaborately. “I know I’ve never been your biggest fan, Stilinski, but I think I can safely say that you two needed distance from Beacon Hills. You may not have enjoyed the last 15 months, but it’s done you both good.”

“You think so?” Scott asked. 

“Yep. I was listening to you talking and I said – well, that’s nice. You guys are talking about things again without Stiles being drunk.” 

“I don’t get that drunk.” Stiles protested. He did indeed get that drunk. “Then why did you interrupt us?”

“As much as I love to hear Scott give his standard pep talk, we need to start focusing on what we’re going up against.” Isaac said. “You guys can reforge your precious friendship later. Jesus, you’re like anime characters.”

“Is that what we were doing?” Scott asked, impishly. He didn’t think that Isaac would ever get dangerously jealous, but he did have a tendency to get slightly jealous. It made Scott long to reach out and kiss him, but it would be so awkward right now to do so.

“I thought that was what we were doing,” said Stiles, playing off of Scott’s words. He turned exaggeratedly to Scott. “Wasn’t that what we were supposed to be doing?” 

“I’m pretty sure that was part of what we were supposed to be doing,” Scott acted dumb. “But sometimes I get confused and I don’t know what I’m doing. Did you think we were doing that, Stiles?”

“Welllllll,” exaggerated Stiles, “if Isaac thought we were doing it, then we must have been doing it. I don’t claim infallibility over relationship matters, given my lack of experience.” 

“You two think you’re pretty funny, don’t you?” Isaac muttered. 

“We’re hilarious.” Stiles vowed and stood up from his seat. “Take my seat.”

Scott was torn in two. He didn’t want the conversation with Stiles to end. While they had spent eight months together, real conversations like the one they had just had were few and far between. He looked up at Stiles.

“He’s your boyfriend, Scott.” Stiles said casually. “If I don’t give you your allotted time, he’ll start plotting my death.”

“I’ve already plotted your death, Stilinski,” Isaac snarked and pulled him back down into the seat. “It involves a staircase, a jar of peanut butter, and a package of XXL condoms. But seriously, if you two aren’t tired, we can go over what I know of German hunters.”

Isaac actually knew quite a bit.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pack tracks Peter to the mysterious haunted house in Germany known as the Jadgschloss Gellenstrom.

Berlin was not as bitterly cold as New York had been, but the light rain falling combined with the last treacherous grasp of winter made it just as uncomfortable. Luckily, the terminals at Berlin Tegel Airport were relatively comfortable even if the place itself was close to forty years old. 

Scott stood by Isaac and Stiles, listlessly, at the baggage carousels. Tegel was the primary airport of Berlin until the endless delays at Berlin Brandenburg could be resolved, but the place still showed its age. Air travel had skyrocketed since when the terminal was remodeled in the 1960s, and it made wait times not only longer but also more aggravating. 

Round and round went the baggage. They couldn’t do anything but wait for theirs to appear.

Stiles sighed. Even though he was much better at focusing, he still found waiting with nothing to occupy his attention a strain. Scott could tell he was employing every meditation technique he had learned both in prison and while training to be an emissary. 

Even Scott was getting a little fidgety. They had just spent a very long time sitting, and every fiber of his body was telling him to go _do something_. But they needed their luggage. Even werewolves needed clean underwear once in a while.

Isaac, on the other hand, was having a conversation in French with someone on his cell. Scott assumed it was a local hunter; Isaac had made contact with hunters whose responsibility was the Berlin area and was coordinating their efforts. It gave him something to do; it made Scott envious.

Scott shoved his hands in his pocket. He looked up from the carousel for the moment and saw the rain pounding on the glass. Then he allowed a chuckle to escape his lips. It was a real laugh, though not particularly loud.

“What?” Stiles queried from next to him. The alpha wasn’t one to burst out in laughter for no reason.

“We’re in Berlin.” Scott replied and turned his attention back to the baggage carousel.

“Yes, Scott.” Stiles seemed a little manically frustrated. “That’s what the name on the airport says.”

“No, think about it, dude. We’re in _Berlin._ ” Scott let a small smile force its way past his lips. 

Stiles eyed him and tried to parse what he was saying. “You’re easily amused, aren’t you?”

“We always wanted to travel. We are traveling. We’re in frickin’ Berlin.” There was still guilt simmering below the surface, but the idea of being in such a city was overwhelmed it. Berlin appeared in spy thrillers and war movies; it wasn’t quite real to Scott that it was someplace you could actually go; someplace he had actually went.

Stiles echoed Scott’s smile and shrugged eloquently. Scott wasn’t sure if Stiles fully understood though.

Isaac hung up the phone. “Okay. I talked to the locals. For some unbelievable reason, they’re still on board with Stiles’ ridiculous plan. They’ll be ready in fifteen minutes.” 

“It’s not a ridiculous plan. If you have another way of tracking Peter down that won’t take a week, I’ll be happy to hear it,” Stiles pouted at the description. “We can’t assume that we have much time, and this is the quickest way to find him.”

Isaac raised an eyebrow. “Do you know how many ways this plan could go wrong?” 

“Everything could go wrong,” offered Scott.

“But it won’t! Come on. Trust me a little here.” 

There was only one rental agency that would rent to a vehicle large enough to transport three kidnapped chimera to an individual. That agency’s storefront was, luckily for them, tucked away in a little used portion of the terminal. Only a few people were waiting to talk to the single clerk. The groupings of chairs and tables used by customers to wait while vehicles were being prepared were empty. So far it was so good.

Stiles got in line while Isaac and Scott stood in the waiting area, trying to innocently look out the windows. They had to wait to start their part of the plan until Stiles was the person being services at the counter. The timing wasn’t particularly difficult. The line was slow and obvious. 

Stiles, turned to them, winked, and then smiled at the counter clerk as his time finally came up Isaac turned to Scott and lifted both eyebrows as if to ask if he was ready. When Scott nodded, Isaac picked him up and hurled him to the floor. “You motherfucker!”

Staging this fight – staging any fight -- had three very significant problems for their group. First, neither Scott nor Isaac were very good actors. Or, rather, they were very good actors when they needed to act like normal, harmless young humans. But these two young humans were in love with each other and they certainly weren’t angry enough with each other to get into an insane physical brawl at an airport. They would have to dig up something dark from their own minds to properly convey the anger a real fight would have.

Which led to the second problem, which was if they managed to find that dark anger and give into it, there was a distinct possibility that they would go too far and they’d shift. No one wanted that in this particular instance. Maintaining control of the shift would require keeping their heart rates below a certain level, and that was not exactly easy to do when you were trying to be convincingly angry. They were werewolves and that biological limitation couldn’t be ignored.

All of this, of course, led to the third problem: instincts. Scott certainly didn’t feel like fighting his boyfriend, but he also had the instinct to protect his beta, not attack him. Isaac didn’t want to fight his boyfriend either, and he would have to go against every instinct to attack his alpha. There was no dying love or super moon to burn through that bond.

Scott scrambled to his feet and with a shout tackled Isaac who attempted to flail animatedly. They rolled around on the floor looking more like sleep-deprived toddlers than combatants locked in combat. Desperately, Scott tried to remember a fight where he didn’t display fangs and claws. He had to recapture both the way such a fight made him want to pummel someone and a way to control it. The only thing he could think of was the battle with the near-rapey kanima-Jackson in the locker room, and he wasn’t defending Allison this time; he was punching the equivalent of Allison.

Isaac pulled himself up and kicked him in the leg. Hard. Scott cried out, and it must have been convincing enough, because Isaac faltered a little bit. That wouldn’t do at all. Taking advantage of the regretful pause, Scott stood up, picked up a nearby chair, and threw it at Isaac. He missed badly -- on purpose -- smashing the wall behind the clerk at the counter. 

Scott could only follow the action out of the corner of his eyes as he and Isaac knocked over more furniture. The crowds were watching them, but the clerk had fled from the counter, allowing Stiles to slip in and under and get access to the terminal. 

Luckily, airport security finally arrived to break him and Isaac up and take them to the security station, in the nick of time. It was getting hard to maintain the intensity they needed to distract others safely. Scott and Isaac immediately surrendered and they fully cooperated once the fake fight was over. 

While they were waiting in the holding area, Scott in one cell and Isaac in the other, they could use their superior hearing to whisper to each other. Stiles mockingly called it, ‘werewolf telepathy’.

“Do you think that Stiles got what we needed?” Scott asked. 

“Probably. We gave him a good five minutes.” Isaac replied. “You have a mean right hook.”

“I didn’t hurt you did I?” Scott asked, alarmed by the idea.

“Well, my jaw hurt for a little bit. You weren’t using your claws, so its’ all better now. We were pretending to fight, so a little accident like that could happen.”

Scott stared down at his shoes, at the realization what he had truly done. “I’m sorry.”

“What?” Isaac sounded a little irritated.

“I’m sorry for agreeing to this plan.” 

“You’re really pissing me off, McCall.” Isaac blurted out. He did sound angry. 

“You don’t understand, Isaac.” Scott shook his head. “We flew over the Atlantic Ocean on a jet plane, and I couldn’t think, in all that time, of a plan that didn’t require me hitting you? The truth is I didn’t think the plan through. I need to do better.”

Isaac didn’t answer, and there was no more conversation until the police arrived to cart him and Isaac off to jail and possibly deportation. Sitting in a holding cell was terribly, but the German airport authorities were pretty damn effective in processing them. 

Stiles was waiting for them in the van, along with one of the German hunters. The other two, who were actually members of the German police force as well as being hunters, drove the van out of the airport. 

“Please tell me it worked.” Scott asked as he settled down in the seat. 

“Yep.” Stiles was proud of himself, though there was a note of concern in his voice. “It was a little too easy, in my opinion.” That got everyone’s attention. “The van was rented in Peter’s name but paid for by an incorporated estate. There was no attempt at concealment. My best case scenario was that we’d get a general idea of where he’d went, and that we’d have to poke around to find him, but I know exactly where he’s going.”

“That means Peter wants us to know.” Scott frowned. He looked at Isaac who nodded his agreement. Peter had been very good at moving around without anyone being able to track him. The Argents had definitely tried to track him. 

“Where is he now?” Isaac asked.

“The estate is called Jadgschloss Gellenstrom.” Stiles shrugged. “I’ve got an address. Far as I can tell, it’s about three hours north of here on an island in the Baltic Sea.” 

At that the German hunter, whose name Scott had been told but then had promptly forgot, gave out a loud groan and spoke in German to his compatriots driving the van.

“What?” Stiles demanded. “What?”

The German hunter looked disturbed; his English was near-perfect. “Jadgschloss Gellenstrom is haunted. It is not a place that anyone, even your kind, should journey to lightly.”

Stiles’ eyes rolled up into his head. “Fantastic. I should have expected this. Of course, Peter would take the chimera and his necromancer ally to a haunted house.”

“What do you mean when you say it’s haunted?”

The German hunter looked at Scott as if he wasn’t quite sure if he was pulling his leg or not. “Hunters, reliable hunters, have reported that there is at least one ghost present on the grounds. Also, the lodge itself seems to decide who can enter it and who can’t.”

Isaac raised two very surprised eyebrows. “Decides who can enter and who can’t. Wonderful. That doesn’t sound familiar at all.”

“If the house doesn’t want you to enter, then you can’t enter. Not by guile; not by force.” The German hunter shrugged. “I’ve not tried, but I know there are others who have tried. They just couldn’t do it.” 

Scott growled a little. Fantastic. Peter probably let them know where he was going to so he could gloat about them not being able to get in. He looked up to see the hunter with his hand on his pistol. “Uh, sorry.”

Stiles rubbed his chin. “Do you know anything about its history?”

The German hunter shook his head. “It’s one of the few castles that old to remain in private hands, which is remarkable considering its location. Most of the castles in that part of Germany were confiscated.”

Scott tried to remember why that would be. It took him a few to remember that Germany was once divided.

“The family is reclusive and very wealthy.” The hunter added. “We haven’t done much about it. While ghosts are supernatural, they’re no danger to people unless you visit the places where they’re tied.”

Stiles looked at Scott to see if he was following. Scott nodded; he may not be great at history, but he remember what Stiles had told him about ghosts. 

“Can you get us any information?” Isaac asked. “As much as you can?”

The hunter nodded. “It may take a while, but we can get you as much as we know.” 

Stiles sucked on his teeth. “How long is a while? We’re working on the clock, you know.” 

“For security reasons, we don’t store any of this information online. We can locate the books and bring them to you.” 

Scott turned to Isaac and Stiles. “I don’t think we want to wait; if Peter left us a trail, he wants us there as soon as possible. If we try to stall, he might change his tactics. Getting Peter to talk is always a good plan.”

“He does like to talk. But that house …” Isaac frowned. “Is it weird that I’m a little freaked out by the idea of ghosts?”

“No, Isaac, not at all.” Scott confided. “Those mahrts were super creepy.” 

“Look at the big bad wolves, all a-tremble,” joked Stiles, but everyone knew that he was anxious as well. “I think we have to agree with Scott. If Peter offers us an opening, we have to take it, trap or not. He’s not going to offer it to us twice.”

The German hunter picked up his phone. “We’ll be there as soon as we can. Would you want to go over immediately? Or would you like to rest until tomorrow.”

Scott looked to Stiles. He knew more than either Scott or Isaac about what could possibly happen. Stiles was studying the ceiling lost in his own calculations. “Oh, shit.” He looked at the other. “I’m so used to find out when the full moon is, I forgot what tomorrow is.”

It took a moment for Scott to figure it out. “It’s the new moon.”

“The dark moon is the best time for a necromancer to practice their craft,” Stiles informed them. “Peter’s resurrection was tied to the Worm Moon because he was a werewolf. So … good news and bad news.”

All three of them leaned forward. They knew to listen when an Emissary imparted knowledge. Stiles was suddenly self-conscious. He could confidently bluster with the best of them, but he could suddenly become uncomfortable when his knowledge was recognized. It was a holdover from some of the crippling insecurity he had as a child. 

“The … the good news is that most likely this ritual most likely won’t be focused on werewolves. In other words, Peter is probably not going to become the Edgelord of Death and Mayhem.” Stiles sarcasm faltered a bit. “Which he would totally do if he could get away with it. The best time to do anything with werewolves is the full moon.”

“The bad news is that means it’s probably something about manipulating the dead. This necromancer is skilled enough to summon mahrts, so we should make sure we have plenty of flares …”

The German hunter interrupted. “If we make a brief side trip, I can get you a flame thrower.” 

Stiles eyes lit up, but he refocused. “But I don’t even have a guess about what this ritual could be. Chimeras are unique.” 

Scott decided that they would take the side trip for the flame thrower, and if it they took some time to practice it, that would be okay. He also decided that they’d take the night to get a good night’s rest, so they would be as sharp as possible when they went to the island and Jadgschloss Gellenstrom. 

However, they would cross to the island during mid-day by boat and try to resolve this before the fall of night. It was a little strange when they were told that the island did not allow cars. It made the fact that the estate had rented the van stand out all the more.

Crossing the narrow ocean in a motorboat in the late morning was bad enough. It was still winter and the Baltic Sea was blustered by a constant wind. The spray was cold, and Scott was glad that, werewolf or no, he had bundled up. They pulled the boat onto the sandy shore of Hiddensee and the three of them leaped out of the boat. Actually, Isaac and Scott leapt out, and then they hauled Stiles out. He was having trouble getting use to the wait of the flamethrower. It was pretty bulky. 

The hunter waived to them and Stiles gawped. “They’re not coming with us?”

Isaac shook his head. “Yeah, they’re okay with the new Code and all that, but hunting alongside werewolves is a little bit beyond their comfort zone. Give them time.”

Scott waved his satellite phone at Stiles. “When we’re ready, he’ll pick us up. I’ve got his number.”

They moved off the beach. Hiddensee didn’t have many trees on the southern side of the island. At this time of the year it was mostly high brown grass and patches of frozen snow. They were pretty confident they wouldn’t run into any tourists, but there were people who actually lived on the island. They were hoping to avoid it.

On the other hand, they hadn’t landed right next to their destination. They wanted to give Peter and his allies as little information as they could, and that included which direction they were coming from. 

Of course, that was easier said than done. All of three them saw the ancient hunting lodge long before they were close. It was on a small hillock which wouldn’t be very impressive anywhere else, but the low rise of the island gave it a commanding view. The place had obviously seen a lot of work since the seventeenth century. It was still had its original layout, but it had real windows, and electric lights. It wasn’t an abandoned building. In fact, the lawn was well-cared for.

“Doesn’t look much like a haunted house.” Stiles observes. “Of course, the only ones I’ve seen are in slasher movies.”

Scott focused on trying to get them as close to the house without being spotted. Isaac, on the other hand, searched for signs of their enemies. Neither of them were very successful. If someone was watching they would see the trio. There was nowhere to hide. If someone was watching they were betting at hiding than Isaac’s sharp eyes could dictate.

They choose a relatively isolated side door to try to get into the building. It must have been the servant’s entrance. It’s locked, but none of them are surprised by that. Isaac bent over with a lock pick kit. While he worked, Scott kept an anxious eye out, but Stiles’ eyes were closed.

“Wow.” He breathe. “Do you feel that?”

Isaac grunted in the negative but Scott shook his head. 

“Why don’t you feel that?” Stiles sounded concerned. “It’s like a pull, like I’m being sucked down a drain.” 

“Are you in danger?” Scott asked reaching out to take Stiles by the shoulder. 

“No. I’m not. I don’t have any clue what it’s about, but if things change, I’ll let you know immediately.” Stiles opened his eyes and met Scott’s. “But that goes for you guys as well. This is not the time to be stoically silent.” 

“We’ll tell you if we feel _anything_ ,” Scott assured him. “Won’t we, Isaac?”

Isaac grunted in the positive. He then stood up with a smirk. “After you.” He gesture toward the door. 

Scott opened the door to go first. Beyond that wooden door was a low kitchen. It remind him of the Chateau Argent in France – old and new at the same time. There was stonework and a big wooden table, but also a pair of refrigerators, a stove, a sink, a dishwater and shining pans. The air inside was still and warmer than the outside. He could smell faint traces of a woman and even fainter traces of Peter. He couldn’t smell the chimera. 

He stepped in and immediately felt a little dizzy. It passed momentarily but it felt like nothing more than pushing through an invisible curtain. He turned to see the others. Stiles had stepped through and he felt it as well. “Okay, this is strange.”

Isaac was standing at the entranceway, the cold landscape of Hiddensee framing him with light. “I can’t.” His voice sounded high and strange. 

“It’s okay, Isaac.” Scott reached out his hand. He didn’t think that Isaac would be scared, but he knew that he couldn’t shake his own anxiety. 

“No. I can’t.” Isaac explained. “I can’t cross the threshold.” 

It turned out to be the truth. There was an invisible wall that prevented Scott’s beta from following him. Scott couldn’t even pull him through. Nothing they tried worked. 

Stiles hmmphed as he watched them try to struggle through the doorway. He studied the pair of them, and then suddenly reached out and grabbed Scott by the shoulder. “Oh. I see.”

Scott and Isaac looked at him in frustrated curiosity. “Isaac can’t come in; whatever force blocks his entrance is making it clear. Isaac isn’t like us; he didn’t sacrifice himself.” Stiles looked Scott in the eyes. “This is a house of the dead.”

Somewhere in the Jadgschloss Gellenstrom, someone started playing the piano.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was unable to learn much about Berlin Tegel Airport. I had to make things up.
> 
> I was also unable to learn much about the weather in the Baltic Sea. I had to make that up, too. 
> 
> If I've screwed something up too much, please let me know.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott, Stiles, and Isaac confront Peter and Mother in the haunted mansion.

Scott had often wondered why Peter always had to be so goddamned dramatic all the time. For all his supposed ruthlessness, he could always be relied upon to spend way too much effort on the grand gesture. He was always talking, explaining his motivations, expounding about his enemies weaknesses, gloating about what he was going to do and to whom he was going to do it. 

The point behind Peter’s dramatics had finally become clear to him while Scott was studying with a stuffy and humorless alpha who was in charge of a pack outside Washington D.C. The alpha had droned on and on and on about the different legal difficulties a pack could face when trying to live in the human world. Scott’s focus kept drifting, and the alpha had become irritated. He felt insulted, and he was probably right to be insulted. However, irritated at the lessons and rather than just sheepishly apologizing, Scott had challenged the other alpha, demanding why he thought this method of teaching was the right way to approach the material.

It had taken the other alpha back for a moment. Then, with all the gravitas he could muster, he had explained that it wasn’t enough for Scott to listen to his lesson; he had to believe it. Otherwise, they were both wasting their time. 

Later that same night, Scott had had an epiphany that Peter, for as long as Scott had known him, needed the same thing. It wasn’t enough for Peter to win; those who challenged him and lost had to believe that Peter _deserved_ to win. It also explained Scott why his would-be alpha stuck around after his resurrection, why he had stood his ground at La Iglesias, and why he was going to take the time to talk to them now. 

Peter had to do more than win; he had to be right.

The interior of the hunting lodge/palace was strange to Scott’s eyes. The décor radically shifted centuries from one room to the next. The kitchen was all bare stone but equipped with the most modern appliances. Gourmet chefs would have been pleased to have a setup in their own home. If you took a step into the hallway, on the other hand, you found a series of intricate tables and antique mirrors.

“I think this is original Gothic furniture from the eighteenth century,” Stiles whispered. 

Scott stopped in his track, turning to look at his friend. He wasn’t sure why it mattered and he was absolutely wasn’t sure why Stiles would know that.

“I read about all that stuff when I knew Lydia was interested in it.” Stiles shrugged, unashamed. 

No matter how much danger they were in, Scott could always give his best friend a smile. He could only do it brief moment, and the he had to push on. “Do you still feel weird?”

“Yeah.” Stiles pulled closer to Scott so as to keep the chances of being overheard to a minimum. “It’s sympathy.”

“Sympathy? Like with the bullets?” 

“Yeah. The house draws its power from a specific source; I’ve got a connection to it. You and Isaac don’t.” Stiles whispered quietly; he seemed to be a little more upset than he should be to Scott. “Don’t worry about it.” 

“Where is it drawing you to?” Scott was going to let it go. If he asked Stiles to trust him, 

Stiles pointed down. “Most likely a creepy torture basement. It might not be the best idea to follow it up immediately.”

Scott put his concern for Stiles’ ill-concealed upset at the back of his mind. He had to trust in Stiles’ estimate of his own status or their new partnership would never work. Anyway, this wasn’t the time for them to work on it. They both could follow the music easy enough through the jadgschloss. Whoever was playing the piano was quite good, though Scott couldn’t recognize anything about the music itself.

The jadgschloss was larger than a normal house, but it wasn’t big enough for them to get lost in. When they finally got to the room with the piano, it had been only five minutes since they had left Isaac. The room was actually quite bright, filled with the sunlight of a winter’s late afternoon. 

Peter was standing by the window and was looking out over the snow-pocked landscape of Hiddensee. He had a glass of wine in his hand and when Scott and Stiles entered, he turned to face them on cue. Dramatics. It was good to see that he hadn’t changed.

The only other person in the room was a relatively petite woman, blond and fragile looking, who was the musician at the piano. She concentrated on the song, which she was obviously playing from memory. Pale hands danced over the even paler ivories. In a way, she looked as if she had stepped out of an old photograph. Scott hadn’t seen anyone dress like that outside of books and period-piece movies. 

Scott stopped a few steps into the room, letting Stiles back him up. He kept his hands and arms loose and ready, but he hadn’t transformed. Stiles had the flamethrower ready to go; they hadn’t forgotten the mahrts.

“See?” Peter drawled, all bonhomme and fake sophistication, “I told you that he wouldn’t rush in here claws first. That’s not how the True Alpha operates.” 

“I’m here for Hayden, Josh, and Corey.” Scott stated simply. He didn’t try to impress Peter; he knew that was a lost cause. “We can do this the hard way or the easy way.”

The lady stopped playing and looked at him. Her eyes conveyed no emotion.

Peter’s eyebrows, while nowhere near as expressive as his nephew’s, did a little dance. “Did you practice that cliché, Scott? Or did you catch it once on late night television?”

Stiles blew out a breath in exasperation.

“And I see you brought Stiles with you. Hello, Stiles. It’s been a long time.” Peter left the window and went to what seemed to be some sort of rolling bar. “Drinks?”

Scott stifled his confusion. Drama was one thing, but Peter was playing this off as some kind of business meeting. He wasn’t sure what to say that would refocus the conversation the way he wanted it to go. “We’re not here for drinks.”

“The chimera you are here to rescue,” Peter continued, “are safe and healthy, though thoroughly sedated, in this house. I suppose you could attempt to recover them by violence, but I’m betting the chance to do that without fighting appeals to you, Scott.”

“And we should trust that you’re not plotting our deaths, why?” Stiles observed. “Because that’s always paid off for us in the past.”

“Ahhhh. Because you know me, just as I know Scott. You know I wouldn’t have left a trail of breadcrumbs for Hansel and Gretel to find my little gingerbread house unless I needed something from you. And since I haven’t tried to separate you from each other or capture one of you, Stiles, you should have figured out by now that it’s not something I can take by force. Thus, I have to either trick you or bargain with you.” Peter held out two glasses of wine. “Either way, I have nothing to gain by poisoning you.” 

Stiles glanced at Scott and reached forward to take them. He sniffed it suspiciously. 

“If you want this sit down to happen,” Scott interjected. “You’ll allow Isaac to enter your house.” 

Peter pursed his lips and turned. The woman at the piano looked up. “Magda.”

Scott shivered, and the sounds in the room grew muted. Scott found it harder to even hear people’s heartbeats. A woman, translucent, ragged, and burned, floated up from beneath the floor. This apparition wasn’t like a mahrt, who all seemed human but coldly alien. This was a real ghost, with tortured eyes and charred skin – someone who had been alive but was now dead. 

The woman at the piano, who had to be the necromancer, was not phased at the slightest, while Scott, Stiles, and even Peter -- though he pretended not to be – were almost mesmerized by the ghost. “Would you let their companion in, please?”

The ghost drifted towards the doorway. They watched it go, but Scott reached out and took both wine glasses from Stiles. “Go. Lead Isaac here.” Stiles opened his mouth to protest, but Scott gave him a do-it-please glance and he went.

While Stiles did as he was instructed, Scott took a sip from each glass before setting the aside. Peter watched him with a certain proud glee. 

“You wouldn’t poison me, but you might try to drug me.” Scott argued. He sat down on a chair. “Let’s just wait before they get back before we begin any sort of negotiation.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Peter replied and sat down. The woman began playing the piano again.

It would only take a few minutes for Stiles to get Isaac, so Scott spent that time, not studying Peter whom by now he knew pretty well, but studying the woman at the piano. She was alive, which was a relief to Scott, because the idea of ghosts creeped him the fuck out. She had a scent and a heartbeat, and they both seemed like a normal woman’s. She carried the aroma of old cloth covered by a pretty subtle perfume. Her pulse rate and her chemo signals worked to paint a picture of a woman who was eager, excited even, but very, very practiced in pretending she didn’t care. Or maybe she didn’t know what to do with excitement she felt, so she kept it hid.

Stiles and Isaac didn’t waste any time rejoining him. Stiles had adopted his nervous, twitchy look; either the ghost might have freaked him out or he was frustrated in being unable to perceive Peter’s and the woman’s motivations. Either one of those would put him into his antsy state. Isaac wasn’t any calmer, but he wasn’t nervous; he was angry. Luckily, Scott didn’t see any weapons in hand for him to use, but he knew that by now, Isaac had at least one gun on him.

Scott intercepted them, handed them the wine, and gestured for them to sit own. No matter how nervous or angry they were, he wanted the situation to remain calm and controlled.

“Now, we’re all here.” Scott announced. “We can start.”

“Good. We’ve got a lot of business to cover, and I’m sure you’re ready to hear what you’ve chased me halfway around the world for.” Peter smirked. “I’m also sure you’re wondering why I kidnapped some of Beacon Hills’ unique native fauna and brought them to a German island.”

“They’re people, Peter.” 

“Yeah,” Stiles followed Scott’s rebuke. “And we know why. They’re the chimeras who died and were brought back to life by Theo. Which means that they’ve been to the other side. That’s got to have unique properties for a necromancer.”

“Of course you did, Stiles.” Peter smirked once again. “Why don’t you tell us what those properties are?”

Stiles opened his mouth and closed it, in defeat. “It’s not like I’ve actually studied it.”

The woman spoke up without looking at Stiles. “You can consider them signposts. They have tread the path between the worlds of the living and the dead. If you know how to look, you can see the way they must have gone and, so you can follow them to the darkened lands.”

“Oh.” Stiles did a double take. “I see.” 

Isaac and Scott looked at him. Scott certainly didn’t understand. 

Stiles translated. “Their life energy has change because they died and then came back, and that change can show her how to enter the next world.”

Isaac frowned. “Wouldn’t just dying be easier?” 

Scott turned back to the people they were talking to. “And why did you need us? You lured us here. And who are you?”

“Oh!” Peter exclaimed. “Forgive my manners. This is Eurydice Pfeiffer. She is our hostess.” The woman inclined her head. “As you’ve no doubt figured out by now, she’s very capable when it comes to necromancy. The mahrts call her Mother.” 

Scott mumbled out a hello.

Eurydice replied graciously. “We desired for you to be here for our undertaking, as you so aptly perceive, because you will make what we intend to do far easier. You see, we are finally prepared and thanks to Herr Hale and the creatures you call the chimera, we now have a path that will lead us from this world to the next. What we need, however, is some way to get past the barrier.” 

“I don’t know how we can help you with that,” Stiles countered. “Scott and I didn’t actually enter the never world. We were in Bardo, the Between, but we didn’t completely die.” Stiles chuckled to himself. “Our lives are so weird.”

“We have plenty of subjects who have legitimately died,” replied Peter. “Myself among them. What we don’t have is someone whose howl broke down the barriers between these places.” 

Scott startled at that. It was only now that he remember that Peter had been there when he had freed Lydia from the Between. His howl had allowed her to come back to the lands of the living. “I did that on the full moon, and I did it by calling to one of my pack who was trapped there. I don’t know …”

“There is a member of your pack on the other side of the barrier,” Peter observed, gently. It was odd for him; he was seldom gentle.

Scott felt the scar rip open as if the wound had been made yesterday. His fingers gripped the chair, so he could keep his claws from coming out. He controlled himself. 

Isaac didn’t, starting out of his chair, and got in Peter’s face. “You don’t talk about her!” 

“I have to talk about her.” Peter looked at Eurydice, who was watching Scott and ignoring Isaac’s outburst. “She is the key to this. All Scott has to do is call to her within Bardo, and it will open the door for us.”

Stiles wasn’t upset. He was calculating and thinking. He didn’t say anything, but you could see his fingers tapping on the edge of the chair.

“Why,” Scott said with a hint of an alpha command. “Would I ever do that for you, Peter?”

“For the same reason, Scott, that I am helping Frau Pfeiffer. For the same reason that Isaac will help her, and Stiles will help her. Because of what we get out of it.” Peter enjoyed stringing things out; he wanted them to believe. 

“Just spit it out, Peter.” Scott demanded once more. “Playing games isn’t going to make us help you.”

“Ahh, the impatience of youth. What could we possibly offer for your help but the one thing that you can’t get without our help? What could we give to you when you open the gateway to the lands of the dead? Allison. You can have her back.”

Scott felt as if he had been shot in the chest. He hadn’t really thought of the possibility of bringing people back from the dead, recently. When she had first died, in those delirious weeks that blended together into one long dreary misery, he had thought about tracking Peter down and forcing him to tell him the secret of resurrection. 

He hadn’t; He’d known why he hadn’t. Even if he had found Peter and convinced him to talk, he couldn’t trust him not to sabotage him. 

Scott glanced over to Isaac, whose eyes were glowing. He reached out and laid a hand on his beta’s arm. Isaac and he locked gazes; there was so much to say.

Peter’s eyebrows did a fair imitation of Derek’s. “And, of course, Stiles, you could get your father back.”

Scott immediately looked over to Stiles to see if he was going to need to intervene. He was surprised when Stiles was looking neither flustered nor angry. He wasn’t standing up ready to yell. He was focused like a sniper on Eurydice Pfeiffer. He didn’t say anything.

“And what do you get out of this, Peter?” Scott asked quietly. 

“Everyone, of course.” Peter said. “My sister. My niece. Everyone who died in the fire.” 

Scott’s pack went quiet. Each of them, Scott could tell, were evaluating what this might mean to them. Resurrecting Allison and Noah wasn’t a simple matter, but it had to be tempting. Scott didn’t really trust himself. He kept looking over at Stiles for his input.

“That was the carrot,” Stiles observed. “Now what’s the stick?” 

Eurydice Pfeiffer took a moment to send a look at Peter. “I see what you mean.” She turned to face Stiles. “If the True Alpha’s howl cannot break down the Gate to Death, then I will have to go with my original plan. I’ll follow the souls who have already been there.” 

Stiles nodded. “You’ll kill Hayden, Corey, and Josh in such a way to create destructive resonance which will force the barrier to open.” He turned to Scott. “It’ll be like she created a feedback loop.” 

Scott paled as he remembered Lydia’s warning. She was very worried about that sound, so it had to be prevented at all costs. “Why would they risk me saying no?” He didn’t care if he was talking in front of them. 

“You’ve done it before, Scott.” Stiles was as serious as a cold razor. “You did it for Lydia. I’m guessing the chimera are a once in a lifetime opportunity. If she tries them and something goes wrong, she doesn’t get another chance.” 

The room settled into silence. The die had been cast, and, as usual, it was his decision. 

“Ms. Pfeiffer …” Scott began.

“Frau Pfeiffer, Scott, you’re not in California anymore,” Peter reprimanded.

“Frau Pfeiffer, would you permit me to fly someone in? I have a specialist in this that I’d like to consult.” 

“The banshee can’t tell you anything I wouldn’t be able to tell you, and I’m willing to tell you anything you need to know.” The woman promised as she got up. “May I refill your wine?”

Scott nodded. He was more comfortable now that he knew she really wanted his assistance. He was also more willing to play along now that he knew the alternative was her killing the chimeras. He didn’t actually have a glass, so she got him one. 

“If you can answer any question we might have of Lydia,” Stiles said. “Why would you offer me my father back and not my mother?” 

Eurydice was very deliberate with her wine pouring but she still answered him very carefully. “Peter and the chimeras, when they returned, could heal on their own. Allison Argent and your farther died of wounds, and those can be _mended_ with the appropriate application of necromancy. Your mother died of a genetic illness that was an essential part of her. I am sorry to say that I’m not capable of the fine manipulation necessary to fix that, and I doubt you would want to bring her back just to watch her die of the same illness once again.”

Coldly, Stiles nodded as much to Scott as to Eurydice. He was testing her for falseness. 

“It’s for the same reason that I didn’t have Peter offer your friend Isaac any member of his family. I don’t know enough about them to guarantee their retrieval.” 

Isaac looked up at her after taking the glass of wine in their hands. “Neither do I.” He looked guilty about not knowing this. Before Scott could make to comfort him, Stiles beat it to him by touching his elbow. Sometimes it was better not to know.

“My condolences, Isaac,” the woman says with general sympathy. 

Scott swallowed. He needed more time to think. “We’re going to need to make sure the chimera are all right and Stiles is going to need to be able to get a look at your setup. I know he’s not a necromancer, but I’d like some verification. How long do we have?”

“Tonight is the new moon. It must be done then.” Peter put in, confident that he had won. “I’m sure you understand why we want to do it tonight. Kidnapping is kidnapping.” 

Scott stood up. “I’m not saying yes. Not yet. Not until we understand better what’s going on.” He turns to the woman. “Frau Pfeiffer, we know what he’s getting out of this. What are you getting out of it?”

Eurydice Pfeiffer smiled at him then, but it was a cold smile, the smile of a winter’s morning, a smile of ice and regret. “I get the only thing I’ve wanted for a very, very long time. I get to die.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We learn Mother's story. The pack forms a plan.

“Alright,” drawled Stiles. “You’re gonna have to explain that one.”

###### 

_Eurydice Ahlgren was only five years old when she stopped living in Sweden and started living in Prussia. To a child’s eyes, the world did not change at all as men far away signed treaties. She still grew up beloved by her family in the way that only the youngest child could be. It did not hurt that she was a pretty and well-behaved child. Eurydice dutifully learned all the lessons that her mother and her father taught her: how to be a proper lady; how to be a proper wife. If she never understood that she could have been something else, it was only because she never had any evidence that such a thing could happen._

_What could happen is that her father saw in the eldest son of a German magnate the potential to solidify his precarious position within Prussia and expand his mercantile interest to new markets. A marriage between Helmut Pfeiffer and Eurydice Ahlgren could only enhance the families’ advantages. Her mother was overjoyed; Helmut was a very handsome young man, and he was only six years older than her beloved child; she’d seen girls Eurydice’s age married to men thirty years older or more. The young man didn’t even seem opposed to the marriage, either, though it did concern the older woman how he treated her daughter more like a friend than a potential spouse._

_Eurydice, on the other hand, was excited to finally meet her husband. If he wasn’t as tall as she had imagined him or if he wasn’t as adventurous as she had imagined him, it was something with which she could live. He was handsome, and he treated her well. She would love him, she decided._

_They spent a lot of time at the Pfeiffer’s new manor on Hiddensee. She was given her own room, and, as the stories told to her when she was a little girl had promised, she finally had her own servants and she could run the Jadgschloss. She even made friends with the housekeeper, a lovely woman named Magda. All the people on the island called her a gypsy, but Magda told Eurydice that the true name of her people were the Roma._

_It wasn’t until she had been married to Helmut for six months that she finally began to feel that something was wrong. She thought she was just being selfish at first. Everyone treated her well; her every need was met. Helmut was always kind and so solicitous. But Eurydice remembered how her mother and father had acted toward each other and something seemed to be missing in her won life. She couldn’t tell you what it was, but there were silences and absences, and sometimes she felt like she was a little girl again and she had been sent to her room while the grownups had important things to talk about._

_She finally realized what was happening quite by accident. They had come back from a Midsummer Eve’s party at Count Something-or-others, and she had been talking to Helmut about a problem with the garden. It wasn’t anything serious, really, just a trivial little thing that had been bothering her. Helmut listened, but he was very sleepy. As he rolled over, he yawned and said “I’ll certainly talk to Magda about it tomorrow.”_

_It was the very tone that her father had used with her when he planned to talk to her mother about it._

_At first, of course, she told herself that she was imagining things, but a poison began seeping through her veins. Weeks passed. Months passed. And she saw that while Helmut was her husband, while he always did the right thing by her, he did not feel the same for her that she felt for him. At least, what she thought she felt for him. She was so angry it made her brittle._

_She peered into the silences and the absences, and she found what she was looking for. When he needed to talk to someone about what he was feeling, Eurydice knew he went to Magda. When he was insecure and needed bolstering, Eurydice knew he went to Magda. When the housekeeper didn’t realize Eurydice was nearby, she was free and bold with her words to Helmut. Eurydice felt her heart rotting with the poison in it._

_She finally confronted her husband when they went south for the winter. It took all of her courage to do it, because she had been trained well by her mother and father to listen to her husband in all things. Helmut didn’t become angry or deny, and that gentleness made her all the more resentful. He sighed and sat down across from her and told her a story._

_Strangely enough, Helmut’s story was so very similar to her story. How his parents had taught him what they wanted him to be and what he would be good at and that eventually he would marry a woman with a nice dowry and many prospects, and everyone would be happy. How that it didn’t matter that Helmut thought that Magda was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and that she made him feel the same way today that she made him feel they day they had first met. Helmut told Eurydice how Magda had stayed for him, when her people did not stay, and what she had given up to be with him, even if he was too cowardly to do the same for her. He apologized to her, but he explained that while he intended to give Eurydice the best of things, he just wouldn’t be able to give her everything._

_And, Eurydice, being the proper daughter raised by proper parents, said she understood and told her husband that she would not make too much of a fuss. And in the deepest part of her chest, something growled._

_Helmut was supposed to be hers. He was supposed to be her life. She had done everything she was supposed to do and she was supposed to have the life that was promised._

_Eurydice never let her face change. Each day after that revelation was like the day before on the surface. But down below, she plotted. She couldn’t demand that Magda leave; Helmut would never allow it. She couldn’t embarrass him publically, because not only would she be humiliated as well, she never wanted him to be humiliated. Part of her realized that it wasn’t his fault he had married her when he didn’t love her. She would have to get rid of Magda, but, if she wanted Helmut to care for her, she had to do without him knowing it was her._

_She was patient, but she didn’t have to be patient for long. The answer came to her that very fall, when Pomerania was filled with hysteria and witch hunters. As usual, they rounded up the women who weren’t married, who were odd, and who didn’t fit, and employed their torture to get them to confess._

_A gypsy who had stayed in one place. Did her hands tremble as she planted the witch’s tools in Magda’s room? Did she worry herself sick when she paid someone to tell the authorities they had seen Magda in the woods? Of course she did, but she was determined. The terrible part was that when her scheming worked and Magda was arrested, she didn’t feel one bit better. She didn’t feel like she had won anything. She felt she had betrayed an innocent._

_She went to see Magda after she had been sentenced to hang. Helmut had been there earlier, and he had gone to try to get his father to stop this. Eurydice knew that the elder Pfeiffer would never embarrass himself by risking his family’s reputation for something as low as a gypsy._

_Magda knew the moment that Eurydice entered where they were keeping her. “Your people hate my people for many reasons. They call us thieves. They think because we travel we are untrustworthy. But there is another reason they never talk about; we have wisdom you have forgotten. Wisdom older than your homes and your stores and your countries.” She shook her head. “I never took him from you, but you were too much a child to see that.” She laughed scornfully and then made a strange gesture at her. “You have your life now, paid for with innocent blood. May it always be so.”_

_They hung Magda and burn her body afterwards. Eurydice could not bear to watch it. She comforted Helmut when he cried for Magda, even though it almost made her ill to do so. She stopped eating that much, but she kept busy. She took over the housekeeping duties that Magda had, even though it was beneath a woman of her station. Helmut looked at her with new appreciation, and she smiled, even though her conscience writhed under it like a butterfly pinned to a board._

_Her misery lightens when she discovers she is with child. It feels like a blessing from heaven when Helmut’s eyes light up; it feels like forgiveness._

_The doctor was an idiot. He said that the child seemed healthy; it was Eurydice that he had concerns over. Women are meant to have children, she had wanted to argue. She wanted the child so bad that she brushed off his concerns and his ridiculous suggestion that she do something unspeakably horrible to save herself. The child deserved life; if she passed giving Helmut a child, it would not be a terrible thing to her._

_She did die in childbirth, as many women did back then, but the child was a healthy squalling boy. She got to hold him a little while, until she closed her eyes. She was so tired._

_The next day she opened them. She was alive, as if nothing had happened. But the child was dead. They had not even named it._

_Everyone was kind and sympathetic, but it took Eurydice months to recover emotionally from the loss of her first child. Medically, she was fine. She resolved to try again, even though that idiot doctor told her that every child she tried to have would be a gamble, and a terrible gamble at that. She did not care._

_When she became pregnant again, she spent a ridiculous amount of money on every treatment that the idiot doctors and midwives and wise women could tell her to have a happy, healthy baby. This time she would make things work right, just as she had made everything in her life work right._

_Only it happened the same way it did before. Her body could not stand the strain of childbirth and she was sure she had died, but the next morning, she was alive and the child was not. It broke her._

_It broke Helmut as well, but he was too kind to make it plain. She could see the sadness in her eyes; the light left the house. Eurydice knew it was her fault; it was her punishment. Helmut should be free of her._

_So one day, when her husband was away on business, she bid everyone good night, went upstairs, and drank the poison she had secretly procured. Now her body would match her mind. Her horror began when she woke up the next morning, as right as rain. Her horror was complete when she received the news that her beloved Helmut had passed away in the night. No one could figure out why._

_The next few weeks were terrible; she barely remembered them. She only knew one thing; she did not want to be on this Earth anymore, not without her children, not without her Helmut. It took a few more horrors for to figure out what was happening._

_She walked into the sea, and yet awoke in her bed the next morning. She threw herself off a cliff, and again, she was as healthy as ever by the dawn. Then came news that her mother and father had passed away, one after the other. Eurydice understood she was but a woman and not the smartest person, but even she could see a pattern._

_**You have your life now, paid for with innocent blood. May it always be so.** _

_After that, she was very careful. She did not remarry; even thinking about it would send her into paroxysms. She lived in the house where she had gained everything and lost everything, until she was old and frail, tended by her nieces and nephews and then by their children. Every night, she looked forward to the day she would die at last, and be with her children and her husband._

_One morning, she awoke in her bed in the body the same age as she was when Magda had died. She looked down at herself in horror. She ran from room to room, making sure her family was well. They weren’t. Her favorite relative – her grand-nephew – had passed away in his sleep. He had just turned sixteen._

_There was no avoiding the curse now. Eurydice vowed she would learn all she could about it, and she would break it. She did learn. She consulted real mystics. She studied real necromancy. She found that due to her repeated trips to the Between, that she had a real talent for it. She spent centuries, avoiding accidents, avoiding wars, avoiding anything that might cause her to die, because her emotional tether would always be the person who died for her._

_Now, she was old. She looked in her twenties, but she had seen three centuries. Hope had failed her until she had heard of the end of the Dread Doctors. She had heard of their experiments, and she knew that they might have the knowledge she sought; how she could die without coming back. She hadn’t found them before they perished, but she had something just as good. She had their notes and the products of their work._

_It would be enough; she prayed it would be enough. She was so tired._

###### 

As Mother told her story, she had led them into the basement. It wasn’t particularly a ‘torture dungeon’ as Stiles had suggested it might be, but it was a large basement for an island home, and it was flagged and walled with stone. It was also seriously cold, but that was probably because of the dozen mahrts that stood silent watch in the room. The three chimera were there, secured and chained on heavy metal and wooden chairs bolted to the floor. Someone, Mother probably, had wrapped them in heavy blankets so they wouldn’t be too cold. He doubted that Peter or the mahrts would have done it.

Scott went over to check Hayden, Corey, and Josh out. They were unconscious – sedated as Peter had said – and they didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger. Scott still didn’t like them in this place, when the pack was so outnumbered and had no idea what Magda or Eurydice could do. 

“So,” said Stiles, carefully, looking about the room. “Magda the Roma is the same as Magda the ghost? You enslaved her?” Scott recognized the tactic; Stiles would say something provocative to get the villain to spill secrets. 

“Magda works with me because she wishes to do so. In fact, it is my craft that allows her to be seen and control the house. For the first fifty years of her existence as a ghost, she could neither be seen nor heard.” Mother remarked as if explaining it. 

“You …” Isaac tilted his head. “I hate to point this out, but you murdered her and she cursed you.” 

“For so long, we have both been denied our rest. I can never die, and she can never fully live. Vengeance. Hatred.” Eurydice Pfeiffer shrugged exhaustedly. “What would be the point?” 

Scott looked over at the woman. He had listened carefully. While it was possible to beat their ability to lie, he had detected nothing in her story that was false. It also matched her actions. If it was true, he could see why she wanted to die. Hell, he didn’t know how he could have coped in her position; living only because the people you loved kept dying for you. 

“All you want me to do is to open the doorway to the lands of the dead,” Scott asked. “How do you know it will work?”

“The far shores are denied to me by Magda’s curse. Even she can’t break it now. But were I to physically enter the realms, I think the curse would have to give way.” 

“Anything can break if enough pressure’s applied.” Peter added from where he was lurking in the shadows.

Scott, Isaac, and Stiles jumped. Not only had Peter been uncharacteristically quiet throughout the entire tale, but he had been quiet afterwards. Now, emerging from the shadows and quoting Matt Daehler was enough to remind them all that Mother might not be the most dangerous thing in the room.

“Sorry, children. I’m nervous too.” Peter didn’t sound nervous. 

“I have to talk to my pack about this,” Scott announced. “Without being overheard.”

Eurydice Pfeiffer indicated that was fair and led them to a room that must have once been a larder. It had a heavy door. Once they were in, Stiles laid a line of mountain ash around it. “I have no idea if this will keep out Magda.”

“We’ll just have to assume she isn’t listening. I’ve got a decision to make, and I’m not going to do it alone.” Scott looked up to Isaac.

“We don’t have good odds. I have no idea what Magda or Frau Pfeiffer can do,” Isaac muttered. “And there are twelve mahrts out there – a direct hit from any of them will put you out of action, Scott, and kill Stiles or I. We’ve got the flamethrower, but as large as the basement is, it’s narrow. They could easily use the chimera as cover, and I don’t think we’re prepared to sacrifice them.”

“We’re not,” Scott stated just so everyone was on the same page.

“Then there’s Peter. We know what he can do, but he know us.” Isaac shook his head. “Mr. Argent would say we don’t have very good odds.” 

Scott couldn’t argue with him. He turned to Stiles. 

Stiles swallowed and look down at the ground. “Scott, I’ve been training for eight months. I’m not an expert in anything. It takes years and years to be really good at this, you need someone like Deaton or Morrell …”

“Stiles. I don’t have Deaton or Morrell. I have you. And if there is anyone I can trust to tell me what I need to know without having all the information it’s you. So you’re not an expert in necromancy. You’re more an expert in magic than Isaac or me, and I need your advice. I’ll take anything your intuition can give me.”

Stiles bit his thumb, but Scott’s words obviously steadied him. “Okay, the thing that strikes me as dangerous is Mother herself. She’s undoubtedly intelligent, and she’s had time to learn, but she’s an artist, not a scientist. The Dread Doctors were trying to resurrect Sebastian Valet, but they used the scientific method. Carefully, cautiously, they built up years of hard data with repeated experiments.”

“The chimera.” 

“Exactly,” Stiles took a deep breath. “They worked for a specific goal, just like her, but they were thorough and precise. At the risk of sounding stupid, they were surgical in their method to cut open the barrier between this world and the next and retrieve exactly what they wanted. From what I can tell, Mother doesn’t care what happens after she gets through. I don’t think she’s lying when she says that we can bring people back, but I also think she’s put much thought or care into it. Scott, the Doctors used a scalpel; Mother’s using a sledgehammer.”

“Does that matter?” Isaac questioned, looking at the door. 

“If there’s one thing that Deaton and my teachers have pounded into me, it is that the universe balances itself; that is how it works. The more you push, the more it pushes back. The Doctors respected this, which is why they spent years working toward their goal, and you know I think it cost them their lives.” Stiles shook his head. “Yeah, I think that it’ll probably work for Frau Pfeiffer the way she wants it to, but I don’t know what will happen if we bring people back. I don’t think she knows; I don’t think she cares.”

“What’s the worst case scenario, Stiles?” Scott didn’t know anything about this, so he had to take his word, and it did match what he divined about Mother’s nature.

“If we break the barrier between life and dead?” Stiles let his voice go a little hysterical. “The zombie apocalypse? People dropping dead for no reason? Things stop being born, ala Children of Men? Too many things, dude, for my imagination, and my imagination is pretty big.”

“Odds aren’t in our favor, Scott, if we try to stop them,” Isaac reminded him. “I’m just saying …”

“On the other hand,” Stiles broke in. “If you do open the barrier, and Mother gets through, then most of these people go with her; they can exist her because of her. Then we’d only need to stop Peter from bringing anyone back.” 

“Now, that sounds like a plan.” Scott swallowed. “We go along with it until Eurydice Pfeiffer is dead. Then we stop Peter.” They nodded, as if it was going to be the easiest thing they would ever have done.

It wasn’t.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pack follows Mother into Bardo; time becomes a factor.

The ritual by itself was somewhat disappointing to Scott. Maybe he had watched too many movies, but the whole thing consisted of Eurydice Pfeiffer standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by the three unconscious chimera, while Magda floated, eerily translucent and frighteningly patient, near her. Scott, Isaac, and Stiles stood just within the circle, while Peter stood directly opposed to them.

Peter carried the look of a man prepared for anything, especially Scott and his pack intervening. He had left the Sassy Undead Uncle façade behind and was now the predator he always had been underneath. Scott knew he was going to be trouble, but then, how much of a change was that going to be?

Scott could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as they waited. Something was happening beyond his full comprehension, and it made him want to transform in reaction to danger. He turned to eye Stiles, who was focused as well, but not on anything visible. 

“Is … what’s happening?” He asked.

“All magic,” Stiles intoned, “comes down to belief. Ritual, sympathy, arcanology – it’s all mummery without the spark to set it off.”

“Are you a spark?” Scott asked. He had heard Deaton talk about it long ago. 

“Am I a … ?“ Stiles rolled his eyes. “No, Scott, that’s a metaphor. There’s no special requirement to use magic. I’m completely human. But most humans lack the belief in their ability to change the world; if they don’t think they can do it, then, unsurprisingly enough, magic is forever blocked to them. Some humans, however, can muster enough focus and belief in themselves so the rituals and the arcane mysteries become something _real_.”

“You have amazing focus and no self-image problems whatsoever,” Isaac whispered deadpan. 

“Fuck off.” Stiles replied coldly.

“He’s got a point, Stiles.” Scott said gently and lowly. “And you’ve used power before, but it wasn’t from anything good.”

“There’s a difference between a human using magic and being used by another supernatural creature with power, like I was with _it._ ” Stiles’ whisper was harsh and direct. “When a human uses magic, the human being is in control, like Frau Pfeiffer is now.” He scowled at Scott, ignoring Isaac. “I can focus when I really need to, and I don’t need to believe in myself.” He turned away so they couldn’t see his eyes. “I believe in you.” 

Scott felt his heart seize for just a moment. This wasn’t the place, but he felt himself blushing at the warmth flooding his veins. He grabbed Stiles' forearm and squeezed once. 

Before the conversation could continue in any other direction, they were hit with a dizzying wave that overwhelmed their senses. Scott had only this once before, when they had burst through the doors of the school to be confronted with the snowy landscape of a Japanese garden.

“Bardo,” he breathed. They stood on a field of dead grass under endless stars. Patches of snow glistened around them. 

“That is the Eastern word for it,” Eurydice Pfeiffer observed. Scott startled in shock, for now he could sense only himself and Mother and Magda. Everyone else – the chimera, the mahrts, his pack, and Peter – was gone. “Practitioners of Western necromancy call it the Between.”

“Where are they?” Scott transformed in his anger. Considering she wanted to die, he wasn’t sure how intimidating his beta form would be for her.

“I’ve lived for three centuries. Peter Hale may have limited respect for you, but I know what a True Alpha is, and I know that, inexperienced or not, your emissary would have warned you about the dangers of necromancy. I felt it best to take precautions to make sure your tendency toward virtue didn’t override your desire to see your beloved again. The Between isn’t bound by time and space the same way the normal world is, and as a necromancer of no small talent, I can manipulate that to my advantage.” Mother sounded confident and eager. She didn’t sound hostile. “The chimera have not entered this realm. Peter and your pack mates are where their hearts drew them, Alpha. Now, will you do what you agreed to?”

“Where are the mahrts?” He was worried about those creatures. Anything created from the souls of stillborn children worried him. 

Magda floated toward him. Scott had no idea what lay behind those eyes, but he sensed no hostility. Instead, it seemed as if she were studying him.

“I promised them the lives that were denied to them, but all necromantic practice will only give them the semblance of life. In order to claim life truly, they must return to the lands of the dead and then find their way to the portal you will create. “ 

“You don’t care,” Scott said, remembering Stiles’ warning. “You don’t care what will happen if they come back?” 

“Not particularly.” Mother answered. “Does that seem callous? I know it does, yet you cannot imagine the despair I live in. If I do not succeed at this, it will have been the last chance of which I know. I will live forever, killing every single person I love against my will. So, open the door, alpha, or I’ll leave Bardo, murder the chimera, and do it myself.” 

“I’ll do it, if you tell me how to seal the door after you go through.” 

Mother looked at Magda, who had been staring at him. Magda croaked in a voice that was ragged and raspy. “He means it.” 

Eurydice Pfeiffer studied him. She could see her wearied eyes calculating all the odds. “Closing it is simple. Once you leave this place, move the chimera out of their positions. Everything in this pocket of the Between will collapse, including the portal. Do make sure no one you care about still remains here when you do so.” 

Scott could have punched himself in the face. It would have been so easy, outnumbered or not, to just move the chimera and ruin the ritual. They could have used them as shields against the mahrts. He stopped the self-recrimination, though; now was not the time to beat himself up. He was in Bardo again with a powerful necromancer and her allied ghost. He needed to think fast and move fast. 

“Okay.” He took a step forward. Even thinking about what he was about to attempt was torturous, but he knew he would do it. He could call to his pack, just as he had done it for Stiles when confronting the nogitsune in his best friends’ mind and just as he had done it for Lydia when she was trapped in this place. No matter how the very thought of it made his throat twist in pain, he could call for her. He could call for Allison. 

He took a deep breath with the cold air of this place burning his lungs. He remembered those days after she had died, after the nogitsune had been imprisoned. When everyone else was asleep and safe, he had walked the Preserve and sang to the moon. It had been one of the few times his instincts and his conscious mind had been in harmony. He would pause afterward, and listen for her to answer him. She never did. 

Scott had given his word. He sang to Allison in this false moonless sky. The song echoed through his body, tearing at the scars that never fully settled. It hurt just as much.

Again, as with the ritual he had just witnessed, there were no overwhelming magical explosions or eerie screaming or bony hands clawing for purchase. Instead, a vertical plane floating cracked as if it was a piece of heavy safety glass and he had slammed his fist against it. The spider-webbed cracks spread until they formed an irregular oval in the world. One by one, pieces of the cracked world fell to the ground and dissolved, showing nothing underneath.

When Scott saw nothing, it wasn’t darkness, and it wasn’t some terrifying aspect of a timeless oblivion. It was a place he could look directly at and simply not see. He was alive, and he understood subconsciously that whatever was there was not for his eyes. His brain simply refuse to process what could be seen on the other side of the portal.

Eurydice Pfeiffer studied the portal to the lands of the dead like it was simultaneously the greatest present she could ever receive and the most horrific monster she had ever witnessed. Scott had seen hesitation like that before. She had yearned for it, but now she was confronted by the unknown possibilities that came with actually having it.

At her hesitation, Magda held out a hand. It wasn’t a command but an offer to guide her into the unknown. After a moment, Eurydice shuddered and took Magda’s hand. In a moment and for only a moment, Scott saw the bond between them. They were friends again. 

They didn’t say anything to Scott; they didn’t even look at him. They strode forward together to meet the end. Scott did hear them call out to those that had gone before as they breached the surface of the portal.

Magda called out “Helmut!”

Mother called out “Meine Kinder!”

And then they were gone, and the field of dead grass on Hiddensee was also gone. In less time than it took him to blink, he wasn’t standing under a new moon’s sky on a snow-patched field. He was standing in the Preserve under a full moon and dead leaves blew around his feet. As familiar as this place was, in his heart, he knew he was still in Bardo. 

He recognized the night; everything was as familiar to him as his own bedroom, because he had gone over the events that took place then and there so many times. This vista was identical to the night Stiles and he had entered the woods looking for half a dead body. He didn’t doubt it, but he wondered why he was here. Mother had said that in Bardo they would be drawn to places by their hearts. That still didn’t answer ‘why.’

Scott cocked his head to one side. He could smell blood; his own blood though there was something different about it. Of course, he hadn’t really known the scent of his blood from before he had turned, so it could be completely normal. He decided to follow the trail.

Stomping through the tree line, it didn’t take long for him to find the corpse. His corpse, to be precise, was lying along the path from the place he was bit to the highway. It felt kind of good that he could still be shocked, even after all he had seen, to find himself like that, cold and dead, black blood flowing from his eyes and ears, hands clawing at the earth. 

Scott stared down at the tableaux. “Why would I see this?”

“Because this is where your heart lead you.” It was her voice. Allison’s. 

Scott froze, looking down at the recreation of himself, dead eyes reflecting the moon. If he turns around, if he locates the source of that sound, it’ll be real. He’s not quite ready for that yet. “My heart wants me dead?”

“Are you telling me you have never thought to yourself that everything would be better if you died that night?” Her voice is just as strong as it always was. 

Scott couldn’t argue with that at all. “It’s one thing to think that. It’s another thing to realize you want it.” He stood up and tore his eyes away. “So, the dead can read minds?”

“No.” And she laughed, mercurial and light and that was the thing that forced him to turn around. She stood there, looking exactly like she had before the end, smiling at him. “But we remember.” 

It took every ounce of willpower he had to not run to her and take her in his arms like some schmaltzy romance novel. Part of him wondered why he didn’t do it anyway; everyone had always accused him of being stupidly romantic. Why not indulge himself? Another part suggested that they weren’t together any more, but yet another part suggested that she wasn’t real, no matter what necromancy was being practiced.

“You remember me being suicidal?” There. If there was something lamer he could say to Allison Argent, he couldn’t possibly think of it.

“One of the best things about being dead, Scott, is that the truth no longer hurts. It’s just the truth.” She stepped forward. She was armed and clad in white. It wasn’t some diaphanous gown; it was a rugged white. It was designed for battle like the tabard of a knight. “It’s the only explanation for the way you treated yourself.”

“You’re here,” he whispered. 

She blinked slowly and smiled at him. “I am. It’s good to see you again.” 

“You can come back with me.” It left his mouth in a rush. 

“I could, but you know I shouldn’t, don’t you?” She said sadly. “I’m dead, Scott, and what is dead should stay dead.”

It was strange to think that he was unprepared for her to say that to him. He had been so twisted by what he wanted and what he knew to be the right thing to do, that he hadn’t even considered the fact that she might not want to come back.

Scott stared at Allison as the quiet woods remained quiet. He finally spoke. “That’s not true. Many people have come back from the dead. Peter did it. The chimeras did it. Valet did it.”

Allison took a step toward him. “I didn’t say I couldn’t come back. I said I shouldn’t come back.”

Scott felt his hands go numb. “I … are you really Allison?”

“I am, Scott.” She tilts her head. “I’m not an illusion or a hallucination. Everything is clearer now. I ... I meant every word that I said …”

Scott’s voice was loud enough to echo in the false forest. “No. You were lying there, you said those things and you were _wrong_. It was not okay. Do you know what hole you left when that happened? Have you any idea of the tears you put in me and Stiles and Lydia and Isaac? And it didn’t get better after that. Isaac ran because he couldn’t take it. Stiles still thinks that part of him is broken. Every one of us is careful never to mention you around Lydia, because it always crushes her. Always.” 

Allison must have heard something in his voice, because she stepped back, wary. “Everyone dies.”

“When we’re seventy! When we’ve lived! Do you know how many people will be happy if you come back? Your father …” He swallowed. “Your father is now my father, but you don’t think I can’t smell it every time he sees something that reminds him of you?” 

Scott didn’t know what the tipping point was. Was it the fact that he stood before Allison – he knew now it was Allison – and she was rejecting him? Was it the acceptance on her face? He thought he’d break down in sorrow, but he didn’t. Instead, rage from somewhere hidden in his ribcage flared to life, white hot and sharp. He was surprised it wasn’t pouring from his mouth or shooting from his eyes.

“You’re going to come with me. You’re going to live.” 

“You can’t understand, but …” She began. She spoke in the same gentle voice. She was the same, the same as when he wanted nothing but her. Even if he could never have her, he could have this. He could give her life back. 

Scott transformed once again and reached out to snag her arm. “I’m not asking.” Let her be mad. Let her never forgive him. Once she was out of this place, she’d be happy. 

Allison was startled, but she was too good of a hunter not to have an idea. She twisted away from him and around one of the trees. He was fast, though; she’d never get away. He grabbed her shoulder easily. She would never be able to break his strength.

The dagger to his forearm was a surprise. It cut through his flesh easily. It wasn’t deep enough to cause him real problems. 

“I don’t get you!” He roared. “You _want_ to stay dead?” 

She hadn’t stopped moving when she slid out of his grip and was a full sprint. He charged after her. She couldn’t outrun him and she certainly couldn’t hide, but he didn’t know how she could go back where he couldn’t follow her. Or even if she did, if he wouldn’t follow her anyway.

She never answered him. Instead, Allison slipped out from behind a tree and put an arrow in his kneecap. He staged forward, his leg temporarily frozen, his stride disrupted. He clawed a huge gash in the tree he leaned against.

He tore the arrow out with a quick jerk. “You don’t want to college? Get married? Have children? All the things I stopped you from having?”

Allison’s only response was to put an arrow in his left hip. God, that hurt. He took the time to rip it out too, because it would slow him down. As he did so, he used his right hand to support himself on the trunk, which was a bad idea, as she stapled his hand to the tree. 

“You don’t have to be with me. You don’t have to be anywhere near me!” He called out. He couldn’t tell if the tears in his blazing eyes were because of the incredible pain of the arrows or because she was fighting him so hard.

“You didn’t do this to me, Scott. Everything happened because of choices I made.” She was circling him now. Hunting him. She wasn’t going to for the kill, but she was trying to cause as much pain as possible. 

Pain makes you human. 

“Allison, _please_.”

She stopped moving because he had stopped moving. She didn’t sound angry at all. “You don’t get to make the choice for me, Scott. You never did. There are things you don’t know, and you can’t know them, yet. Respect my decision.” 

He ripped himself free and leaned up against the tree. “You say that … you say that as if you were saying you don’t want to go to the prom with me. This isn’t _fair_.”

He took great heaving gasps of air. “Stiles told Lydia once that death isn’t about you. It’s about who we left behind. Well, you left everyone behind, Allison. They all miss you. Every day.”

Allison strode toward him, bow in hand, as confident today as she had ever been. “I know.” She tilted her head to the side. “Do you know how I know?” She still wasn’t the slightest bit angry with him. 

Scott shook his head. He was too miserable to answer any more, too angry with himself, too enraged at his own inability to say the right thing or to do the right thing.

“There are no secrets among the dead, which is why the lucky few who come back don’t remember anything. Those you have touched who have come here, they know how you are. They tell me what you’ve tried to do. They tell me how you’ve looked after my father, how you look after everyone. They believe in you, as I believe in you. You’re everything I thought you were.”

“Come back.” He whispered. 

She shook her head. “You need to find Isaac. You need to find Stiles. You need to leave this place. The hole you tore will heal itself, but not if you’re still here.”

“Come with me. Isaac will want to see you again.” 

“Isaac has never stopped seeing me. Tell him I love him, but I have other things that I have to do.” She looked over her shoulder and her jaw set firmly. “They’re coming.”

“Who? Who’s coming?” 

“The mahrts. They want what they were supposed to have. They can’t get it, Scott. The universe doesn’t work like that.” She turned around and knocked an arrow on her bow. “I will hold them off, so you can get the others. Time works differently here, but it still passes. You have to go before they get out.”

Scott opened his mouth to speak as she watched him. He’d fight with her. He’d stay with her. 

Allison knew him too well. “They need their alpha. Do as I say, since you were such an ass before.” She pushed him with force but no malice. Her smile was the warmest thing in the world. “I can take care of myself.” 

Scott listened. He had to; he owed her that much. He started to move away from her, through the woods, but he looked back, though you were never supposed to look back. In the distance, he heard them shifting through the forest, wailing and slithering. They had never lived, and now they were poisoned by the rage. He saw Allison Argent stride towards the sound, bow drawn, ready for battle, an alabaster hunter in the darkness of the forest.

For the second time, he left her.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott finds both Isaac and Stiles in Bardo with time running out.

Frau Pfeiffer hadn’t been kidding when she had told him that time and space didn’t work the same in Bardo as it did in the real world. On one hand, it saved a lot of time when you could turn the corner and no longer be in the Preserve but in the halls of Beacon Hills High School. On the other hand, it was incredibly confusing to try to navigate. Your feet lead you one place but your heart led you another.

His normally superior senses weren’t as reliable either. While every place he went had scent, Scott couldn’t help but feel that he was imagining them into being. The locker room smelled exactly the way he remembered it, even though no one had ever showered there. The turf on the lacrosse field smelled like fresh-cut grass, even though the city was so thoroughly empty there was no one to cut it.

The school’s hallways echoed in the light of a dying afternoon. No one was here, either living or dead. The rush of terror that used to accompany his arrival at the school as night fell was absent as well. This wasn’t real. 

He had guessed that he would have found at least someone at the school. If not Stiles or Isaac, it could have been some poor soul who had died on his watch. But it was unambiguously empty. He couldn’t help but relax at the silver lining; he hadn’t called up the people he had failed.

He burst out of the double doors and out into the parking lot. Even the cracks in the sidewalk were the same; it was such a realistic fake it was kind of disorienting. He had to concentrate on figuring out how to locate his pack, and all he could do is wonder at this place. 

Think analytically, he ordered himself. Out loud, he said: “Okay, Isaac. Where would your heart lead you?”

It certainly was a frustrating puzzle, but he had become used to working things like this through and coming to his own conclusions. He was sure that was the reason that Deaton spoke enigmatically all the time, so that he wouldn’t be helpless in situations like this.

It seemed to him that he hadn’t summoned – that was the best word for it – anyone he hadn’t really wanted to see. So, he could eliminate Isaac’s father. He couldn’t eliminate Isaac’s mother or Camden, but that wouldn’t help. He didn’t know anything at all about Isaac’s mother – not even her name. He knew about Camden and his death in the war. He didn’t know if Isaac would seek them out.

Suddenly, Scott recalled some of the things Allison had said about being dead, and it lead him to more questions. Did people change after they died? If Isaac met his dad, would he meet the same abusive prick who had lock him in the freezer? Or would he meet the man who was someone Isaac had admired and loved? Were the dead frozen as they were when they died? Did they grow? It was a mystery; it was something he couldn’t know. 

Even with no answers, he found he had at least one answer. Isaac wouldn’t know more than he did about this, so he didn’t waste time trying to get to the Lahey home. Isaac would avoid any chance of meeting with his father. He started out for the loft. 

Travel was quick. He found himself at the entrance to the loft in … he wasn’t exactly sure how long it took. Urgency nipped at his heels as he slid the door back to see … nothing. The loft was as empty as the last time Scott had seen it; in fact, it was exactly as the last time he had seen it. 

Ugh. That generated even more questions and he already had plenty. Was there more than one version of the loft in Bardo? Was there one for him, one for Stiles, one for Isaac, one for Peter? If that was true, he wasn’t going to be able to find anyone quickly.

Scott kept walking as he thought about where Isaac’s heart would lead him. Isaac was his beta. Isaac was his boyfriend. He loved Isaac. He knew what music Isaac liked to listen to. He knew what things Isaac regretted and what thinks of which he was proud. If he wasn’t with Allison, then where would he be? Who would he want to see?

After one of those timeless shifts, Scott stood before the doors to the abandoned train station. He’d never quizzed Derek about why, with all the millions he had inherited from his family, he had holed up in this place. He thought he understood now. Derek, despite being wealthy, wasn’t a materialist. Derek chose this place because it was hidden from the Argents, because it was secure, and because it was centrally located.

He opened the door and heard laughter coming from within. It burbled up from the shadows. It was the first laugh he had heard in this realm. He knew it wasn’t dangerous, because he recognized it. 

It was Erica. 

Scott resisted the urge to sharpen his ears and listen to their conversation, but he wouldn’t have wanted anyone to listen to him and Allison. He walked with a deliberate, heavier tread, so they would know about his presence long before he reached where they were. He didn’t know if sound traveled naturally in Bardo or even if it was something that made any particular sense to worry about. But he knew what he had heard, and he wasn’t going to interrupt any more than he had to. 

Need drove him to keep going though. No clock worked here, but time still passed, and the mahrts threatened everything. He had gone to Isaac first because he thought he would need help with both Stiles and Peter. He’d have to be the spoiler for this reunion.

The three of them – Isaac, Erica, and Boyd -- were sitting on the ubiquitous crates that had populated the train station. The old building must have been created here as Isaac remembered it because Scott remembered the station being a lot darker, a lot more run down, and a lot dirtier. Isaac turned to watch his approach; he had obviously heard him coming. The strangest look hung on the taller man’s face. It reminded Scott of nothing less than the look on his mother’s face the day when his father had driven away after the divorce: glad of what had finally happened but destroyed by it as well.

Isaac never talked about his fellow betas. If they were ever brought up, even if Scott brought them up, he would change the subject or just leave the conversation. Scott had eventually avoided the topic altogether. He had hoped that eventually Isaac would want to talk to him about anything, but that hadn’t happened yet. He didn’t hold it against his boyfriend; everyone had secrets that were theirs alone.

Honestly, Isaac was probably afraid to share it with him. Kira had told him about stopping Isaac from burning the twins alive when he was under the nogitsune’s influence. Scott wanted to tell him there was no reason to be ashamed. It was all right to be angry. 

As it was all right to be overjoyed. As it was all right to want to see your pack mates and talk to them. Scott had never really been pack with them, and even he felt good to be in their presence again. “Sorry for interrupting.”

“Hello, Scott.” Erica said. She was as beautiful in her own way as Allison had been. Scott sucked in a breath. To see her again after so much time was bittersweet. He could hardly imagine how Isaac felt. Boyd nodded to him. He was quiet as ever, but it meant just as much as anything.

“It’s okay,” Isaac said, sadly. “I know we have to go. Did it work?” 

Scott kept his eyes on Erica and Boyd, and they watched him. It occurred to him they were like Allison was now. All peace and calm. “Yes. She and Magda are gone, but the mahrts are coming back.” His hand trembled and he instinctively reached for Isaac’s hand. It was warm. 

“Oh, that _is_ cute,” smiled Erica. “You told us, Isaac, but I didn’t quite believe it until right now.”

Scott looked up at Isaac, searching his face. “Yeah, sometimes I don’t believe it. I’m … sorry, Erica. Boyd.”

Isaac squeezed his hand. His eyes glistened but he didn’t add anything. 

“What are you sorry about?” Erica asked tossing her curls. She didn’t have any makeup on but she was somehow more beautiful than at her most prepared. Boyd grunted in surprise from his location, but the corners of his mouth turned up a bit.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry that I only got to know you when everything was terrible. I’m sorry you’re here and not at home.” Scott felt the words come out. Apologies were useless, but the only other thing he could do for them was so inconceivable. “Maybe …

“Isaac told us that it would be dangerous for us to go back,” Erica interrupted him. “It sucks, but at least we’ll get to say goodbye this time.” 

Scott blinked. Isaac had had the presence of mind to simply tell those he missed the truth. He hadn’t. He’d ignored the danger to everyone else. He’d tried to force her. Now, he was the one to feel ashamed. His eyes dropped to the dirt floor.

“Show me your eyes.” Boyd said suddenly. His voice was exactly how Scott remembered it. He couldn’t save them then, and he couldn’t save them now. The least he could do was obey this request. He let the eyes that he suddenly felt like he didn’t deserve flash.

“Sexy!” Erica joked. The three of them laughed, and Scott got the feeling there was a bit of history there he wasn’t privy to. It was understandable. They had been pack, and it became clear to him, that they were still pack now. He had never regretted his decision not to join until this moment. 

“See? My boyfriend is a True Alpha.” It could have been sarcasm, but it didn’t sound that way. 

Erica and Boyd approached him and suddenly Scott felt bashful. Erica gave him a hug and he returned it. He hadn’t gotten to hug Allison, because … it had been too late for that. Boyd, on the other hand, stuck out a big hand. “I was right.”

Scott grabbed the hand and shook it vigorously. No matter what else happened today, he was glad he had gotten to do this. “Right?”

“I did want to be like you.” 

Scott stepped backwards, reeling. “We have to go, Isaac. I’ll … I’ll leave you alone to say goodbye.” He couldn’t bear to be there anymore. Wasn’t he supposed to be the one with the morals? How could Isaac have handled this so much better than him? He left a lot more quickly than he had come in.

Outside, the night sky was moonless once again, but it was not the same as over Hiddensee. The stars spread themselves out over an empty Beacon Hills. The temperature was colder and the wind was chill. He hoped that it was because of his own heart and not because the mahrts had gotten past Allison. 

He leaned up against the wall and closed his eyes. It was getting harder to tell what was real and what was an illusion. He needed this to be done; he needed to be out of here. But he had to find Peter and he needed Stiles to do it. They all had to leave.

He heard Isaac approach him. He heard his heartbeat and inhaled the smell of his skin. In his softest, kindest voice, his beta asked: “Are you okay?” 

“You … you said goodbye?”

“I did. I never got to before.” Isaac put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. “I mean it. Are you okay?”

“I didn’t … I didn’t do near as well as you did, Isaac. I screwed it up. I screwed it all up.” He didn’t want to open his eyes and see Isaac looking at him like he deserved something. 

“Scott. I’ve had more practice.” Isaac kissed him on the forehead, and Scott’s eyes flew open. “Now, Alpha, what do we do next.”

Scott forced himself to straighten up at the title. “We have to find Stiles. It’s going to take all three of us to stop Peter before the mahrts find us.” 

“That won’t be hard at all,” Isaac said quietly. “There’s only one place he would be. Beacon Memorial.” 

The hospital loomed over them. An artificial night had well and truly fallen, but Scott wasn’t sure when exactly that had happened. Night had always seemed to fall so fast in the real Beacon Hills, but here it had happened between one breath and the next. He squinted up at the walls; it wasn’t this tall.

“Is it just me,” drawled Isaac, “or this place significantly more menacing than usual?”

“It’s not just you.” Scott moved to the double doors. This place had been nothing but bad news for Stiles, so it wasn’t actually surprising that it had a more nightmarish aspect for him. “Let’s find him and go.”

If they thought the outside was intimidatingly eerie, the inside was even worse. The interior was an abattoir; gore and detritus were scattered through it. Both werewolves crinkled up their noses at the smell of fresh blood, old blood, viscera and antiseptic, but all of their senses winced under the assault. Lights flickered off and on; metal screamed against metal.

Scott clenched his fists. If he had given it but a single thought, he would have realized that Stiles’ trip to Bardo would be different than his or even Isaac’s. He should have been prepared for something like this. “We have to move.” Isaac didn’t argue.

“I can’t find his scent over all … this.” Isaac complained as they rushed down the hallways. “And there are more people here than anywhere else in this place, and I don’t recognize any of them.”

Before Scott could answer, they ran into one of the people his beta was talking about. She was dead – of course she was, everyone here was dead – but where Allison, Erica and Boyd had looked like the best versions of themselves, this person was a horror. She still bore her death wound: a slash across her front like the blow from a sword. Her eyes were strange and glittering. She glared at them but after a moment she lost focus. “You’re not who I’m looking for.”

Isaac opened his mouth to ask who she was looking for Scott grabbed his wrist and kept him from speaking until the woman moved on. 

“I recognize her. She was one of _its_ victims,” Scott whispered. 

Isaac tilted his head at Scott and then his eyes expanded as he realized the possible ramifications of that information. “God damn it, Stiles.” 

Scott thinned his lips in worry. There could be dozens of people roaming the hospital, and he had no idea how they would ultimately react to Stiles. Would they understand that it hadn’t been him that took their lives? “We have to find him before they do.”

“Uhh, _yeah_. But where do we start?” Isaac looked behind a nurses’ station. “He could be hiding anywhere.” 

Scott took a deep breath and shook his head, like a dog clearing water from his eyes. He turned off his senses and the torrent of death they painted and thought about Stiles. Where would he hide? In this nightmare, where would he endure? 

“To the roof,” he ordered. They took the stairs. Too many terrible things happened in the elevators in this building to trust them in this spectral duplicate. 

As they were heading up, Scott swore. “Why does he do this? Why does he keep blaming himself for things he doesn’t do?”

“Because it’s easier for him.” Isaac responded. 

It was a good thing they were both werewolves. They could sprint up the stairs without tiring. 

“What do you mean?” Scott gasped as they rounded one landing. 

“Stiles talked to me about his mother one night. What the disease made her say, and I get it. It’s easier to think you’re bad than to think there’s something wrong with the person you love.” Isaac stopped at the top floor before going out. “He really should see someone, preferably before we enter another fucking hell-dimension that reacts to our emotional hang-ups.” 

“I’ll work on him. I promise.” Scott opened the door. The air outside was colder still. They were running out of time. “Stiles!” He shouted. Let the other dead hear him.

“Well, thank God!” Stiles emerged from hiding behind one of the fenced-off transformers. “I was getting tired of hiding from the Night of the Living Dead cast party.” 

Scott went over to Stiles, hugged him, and started looking him over for any signs of injury. “Are you okay?”

Stiles looked constipated, as if he wished he could bat Scott’s concern away. “Are you two okay?”

Scott didn’t answer, mostly because he didn’t want to make Stiles feel worse since he was the one who summoned people out of guilt. There was a tiny part of Scott that won’t share what had happened to him out of his own guilt. He got to see Allison, and Stiles gets to see … victims.

“Yep,” Isaac brusquely. “Only you, Stilinski, could summon up a hospital full of people looking to whip your ass.”

“It’s a talent,” Stiles rejoined bitterly. “I want … I couldn’t get to his room. Could I go to his room?”

Scott glances up at Isaac and then at the sky. The mahrts were coming. It was getting cold. Everyone in the world could be in danger if Mother’s spell allowed an army of unborn souls to break through deaths’ borders. The responsible thing to do would be to say no. A real leader would insist they find Peter immediately and leave. 

Apparently, Scott still had things to learn before he was a real leader.

“We’re not going to sneak thought this hospital. We don’t have time.” He looked at Isaac. “We go straight to his room, and any dead person that gets in our way gets to understand what werewolves can do. But you won’t have much time, Stiles, so make it count.”

Sometimes, only sometimes, Scott forgot that werewolves are monsters. He knew that they’re not necessarily moral monsters, but he forgot that they were physical monsters. He had become so determined not to become bloodthirsty that it had also become reflex not to indulge in the sheer power of the form he had been given. He had to remind himself that he wasn’t just Scott; he was the wolf. 

They navigated the service passages and staircases as far as they could before venturing out into the hallways, but unluckily for them – or perhaps it was a manifestation of Stiles’ heart, Scott still didn’t understand how this place worked – there were plenty of the dead in the hospital hallway between the staircase’s door and their destination. Stiles froze the moment he saw one of them, blood-soaked and staring at him. Scott reached out and grabbed him by the arm. “Close your eyes, Stiles.”

Isaac and Scott led Stiles down the hallway. The dead tried to talk to Stiles or scream at him or get close to him, but they could not get past Scott and Isaac. It was so hard for Scott because he wanted these people to know that it wasn’t Stiles. It was never Stiles. But, he repeated to himself, they didn’t have time to explain.

He and Isaac were transformed, and while the dead were fearless, they were also merely human. They couldn’t defend themselves against werewolves any more than they could against Japanese demons. Scott batted them aside and refused to listen to their pleas. It wasn’t too far, maybe a hundred feet, but he could feel Stiles shake every step of the way. It was a gauntlet. 

They made it though. They made it to the door before the room where Noah had died. All they had to do was turn the handle and go inside. There was only one thing that could stop them.

“Mieczyslaw,” the woman’s voice said from behind them. “Oh, my Mischief.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mahrts are poised to re-enter the world of the living. Scott has to get everyone out before they do so.

Scott put his hand on the wall of the hospital hallway to steady himself. He didn’t want to look at Claudia Stilinski. The truth was that he was quickly reaching the limit of what he could handle in one day. He felt drained and keyed up and exhausted and tensely anxious all at the same time. 

He had been friends with Stiles back when his mother’s periods of lucidity were growing shorter and farther apart. While they had been friends before Claudia slipped away, their ‘best friendship’ had only really cemented itself when Stiles had stayed over on the bad nights and whispered all the terrible things that the dementia had made Claudia do. He had no one else to tell but Scott.

Scott’s mother had sat him down and explained to him that sometimes people got very sick, and sometimes it wasn’t a sickness that could be cured. Melissa had told him that the only thing he could do was be there for Stiles and not to pass judgment on what Claudia would do. Her sickness made her do and say things that weren’t right, but it wasn’t her fault. If Stiles’ mom could, she’d get better.

So when the other kids started talking about Stiles’ crazy mom – while thirty-thousand people in a city allowed anonymity for many tragedies, the wife of the sheriff losing her mind was not one of them – Scott pretended he didn’t hear anything. He accepted Stiles when was moody or when he was cross without complaint, and he learned to know when Stiles wanted to talk about it and when he didn’t. 

Forcing himself back to the present, he turned to see Isaac watching the dead woman with wide eyes. His beta must have heard about Claudia Stilinski, and he was there when the nogitsune had tricked everyone into believing Stiles had the same illness. Isaac didn’t say anything to draw attention away from the reunion, but the curiosity was plainly etched on his face.

Stiles had yet to turn around. There was probably a part of him that would have preferred to rush back down the hallway and deal instead with the victims he had summoned rather than to deal with this. Years had passed since her death, and not a single wound had healed. “Mom?” It was less a plea and more a careful question. It had to be Claudia, but which one would it be? The one who had cared for him or the one that a terrible disease had deranged into thinking he was a killer and a threat. 

“It’s me.” She said patiently. “You were hiding so well, I couldn’t find you, but I figured you would come see your father, eventually. The moment you summoned us, I just wanted the chance to see you. And here you are.” 

“You … you were aware of me?” Stiles stuttered.

“Everyone who you called out to knows it was you who summoned us to Between. Why do you think all these people are looking for you? They know you are here.”

Stiles glanced down the hallway. “I suppose they had to.”

Scott finally brought himself to look at Claudia. “He didn’t do any of what they think he did. Someone was controlling him!” He felt the need to defend Stiles to his mother. He didn’t want her to think he was some monster. 

Stiles glanced at him, a little shocked. Scott blushed at his own vehemence, but if this wasn’t the time for it, when else was?

“Of course not, Stiles would never hurt anyone on purpose,” Claudia said. She stretched out her arms to him. Stiles stilled. He didn’t run away but he didn’t leap into them.

“Oh, baby,” Claudia said. “You think I don’t remember who you are? The dead remember. No disease, no lie we tell ourselves, no illusion hides us from the truth. I’m sorry, baby, for all those things I said to you; I couldn’t help it.”

Stiles’ face softened as if that was all he had been waiting for. He stepped forward at those words and hugged her. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I know. I know.” She replied. Scott turned away once again from the display of emotion as did Isaac. It was the best they could do to give them privacy.

“I can’t bring you back.” Stiles whispered, though Scott and Isaac could hear him easily. “You’d just get sick again.”

Claudia might have nodded in response, but Scott was determined not to spy. “I’m glad I got to see you anyway. I hated the idea that you wouldn’t know the truth throughout your entire life.”

“I want to say I already knew you didn’t mean it, but I can’t. Forgive me.” Stiles sniffled and draws in a breath. “Dad’s in there, isn’t he?”

“That’s where you summoned him, and that’s where he waits for you.” Claudia explained. 

Scott turns to Stiles. He was staring at the door with his face torn. “I can’t,” Stiles grated. “I can’t go in and see him and then tell him good-bye. I can’t …”

“Then don’t tell him good bye.” Scott commanded. It erupted out of him like a surprise gunshot. He wouldn’t see Stiles like this anymore. He wouldn’t. “You get him, you bring him with us.”

Isaac’s head jerked up. He was angry. He had good reason to be angry. 

“Scott …” Stiles’ voice quavered. “I want to but … I know I’m a novice emissary. I don’t know that much about necromancy. But my gut tells me the same thing that it felt about Theo: that bringing someone back would be wrong. Mother’s spell is dangerous and if we bring anyone back … if we let anyone bring someone back, it could put the entire world at peril.” 

Claudia looked proud of Stiles; it was written on every part of her face.

“I know that I didn’t kill Mom.” He looked at her and she smiled at him. “I know that I didn’t kill Dad. And I know that you didn’t kill Dad. You don’t have to make it up to me. We can’t put the world in danger …”

“Fuck the world!” It was wrenched from his lips. Scott had watched Stiles torn apart repeatedly in his life. To see it happen one more time was once too many. “I’ve had this idea in my mind that I was doing the right thing by putting a bunch of nameless, faceless people above my friends and family. I told myself it was the moral thing to do, and I’ve patted myself on the back for it. Even though my efforts mean so little to those nameless, faceless people.”

Scott snarled. “Have I made you happy, Isaac? Is this the way you planned your life to go? Jumping into a hell realm every six months to get emotionally tortured? And you Stiles? Have I ever made you really, truly happy since sophomore year? Has my stand to do the right thing helped one single person that I know live a better life?”

“Because I just figured something out, watching you with your mom. We get one life, and then we’re done, and if your life, Stiles, will be better with your father back, then bring him back. Because I figured out a secret that the dead don’t want us to know. I figured out why the mahrts want to live so badly.”

“The dead don’t change!” Scott burst into tears. “I talked with Erica and Boyd and they were just like I remembered them. They were calm and peaceful, but they spoke the same; they felt the same. I talked to with Allison …” He swallowed. Isaac’s face softened and Stiles closed his eyes. “She was as brave and true and stubborn as that day at Oak Creek, even though two years have passed.” He pointed at Claudia. “I remember you like this, sweet and full of love but a little weird, too, before the sickness came. That’s when it hit me: the dead don’t change. We get one life. Just one to become the best version of ourselves. That’s it.”

“I can smell the sorrow on you, Stiles; you’re always sad. It’s part of your scent now.” Scott rubbed at his eyes. “And I am standing here, knowing that if you died tomorrow, you’d be sad forever, and all I can think of is the fact that this might be the only thing that can make you happy again. I want you to be happy again. If that means risking the world, then I say do it.”

Stiles’ jaw had fallen. He looked at Scott and something moved between his eyes. Claudia leans close into him. “He means it. I was always glad that you found a friend like him.” 

“Scott …” Stiles breath choked out. He made Scott’s name sound like a prayer. “Do you remember what I said to you in the chemistry class room? When I said that now that you have power you have to do something because you can? It was thoughtless and stupid, but it was also correct. It just doesn’t only apply to werewolves.”

“And look what it’s got me. Look what it’s got you.” Scott answer. “How many people have died on my watch?”

Isaac frowned. “You made a speech about …”

“And I’m going to keep doing it, but I don’t expect to win.” Scott answered. “This isn’t about me. This is about Stiles.”

“And Stiles gets to say something,” Stiles said, just a little angrily. “Scott, you’re not responsible for my happiness. You never were. Best friend or alpha, you don’t have to make that call. As I was saying about power, it applies to more than werewolves. I want … I want to see my Dad again. I want to have my Dad and my Mom again more than anything, but I believe it would be wrong to do it. So I’m not going to do it.” 

Claudia leaned forward and planted a spectral kiss on his cheek. 

“I’ve grown up,” Stiles said. “It’s awful, I know.” He stepped forward and slapped Scott on the shoulder. “Let me say goodbye to my Mom, and then let’s get the hell out of here.”

Scott turned away once again. Stiles didn’t understand, but he had already tried to force someone to do what he thought was best. He wasn’t going to make that mistake again. 

“You didn’t tell me you saw Allison,” said Isaac. 

“Nope.” 

“Why not?”

Scott looked down. “I told you I messed up. She’s holding off the mahrts. I’ll tell you the whole story, but not here, not now. I’m tired of this place, Isaac. I want to leave.”

“You and me both. Do you think we’ll have as much luck with Peter?”

Scott laughed grimly. “Since when has Peter ever cared about anyone but himself? We don’t have time to argue with him.” 

Stiles came up behind them. “Let’s go.”

“You’re not going to see your Dad?” Isaac said. “You might …”

“My father knows I love him, and I know he loved me. Everything else is … “Stiles shook his head violently. “Rubbing salt in the wound. But next time we deal with the afterlife, Scott, you’re on your goddamn own.”

Scott nodded. “Next time, I’m leaving it up to Argent. I’m done.”

They left the hospital and the bottom dropped out of his stomach. It was snowing. Heavily. Their breath frozen into white clouds. “Fuck.”

“Lovely,” Stiles groused bitterly. Some things change; some things don’t: Stiles covered emotional upheaval with sarcasm. “Because this place just wasn’t fucking obnoxious as it was, now it’s fucking Narnia. At least we don’t have to wander to find Peter.” 

“Hale House.” Isaac stated. 

“Hale House.” Scott agreed.

The Preserve in Peter’s mind was gorgeous. The trees stretched to the heaven, even bare and in winter. It was a primordial forest, more real than any concrete maze that man had created. Scott saw deer and squirrels and birds fly, full of game. It jarred with his memories of it, but he could understand. To the children of the city, the Preserve was just woods that jutted up against the town. To Peter, it was the seat of power, it was home.

The Hale House itself benefitted from his memories as well. Scott had never seen the house before the fire, but light poured from every window even as they trudged through the snow towards it. The storm was quickly becoming a blizzard, which made Scott cold in more than ways than one.

Stiles was faltering, not because he was weak, but because he was a human in a blizzard. The wind howled and tore at them and when Stiles went down on one knee, wordlessly, Scott and Isaac picked him up. There was no time. 

They had just begun to be able make out the individual bricks in the Colonial façade when Peter’s voice reached them over the voice of the wind. At first, the words were unintelligible, but the emotions behind them were unmistakable. He was angry. Peter could be charming and sassy and unctuous, but he did have an angry streak within him. He could call upon a great wrath when he let himself be. That’s the Peter they were dealing with. Even outside, they heard the sudden smash of wood and the unmistakable crack of broken glass.

Scott and Isaac picked up Stiles bodily and rushed toward the door. Stiles grumbled, but he didn’t fight it. The intensity of the storm spoke the urgency of getting to this.

“You stubborn bitch!” Peter shouted through the door. “For once, for once, could you just listen to me? If you won’t come with me, let me take the children. Let me take them back.”

“I don’t trust you, Peter. You won’t tell me how you are able to do this.” It was a woman’s voice, strong and serene. It had to be Talia Hale. 

“Does it matter?” Peter roared, but there was a note of pleading to it. “Let me give them the lives that were denied them, if you don’t want your life back!”

Scott prepared to rip the door open to the house, but he found it was unlocked. Talia and Peter, both fully human, were confronting each other in the blazing hallway. Part of Scott noticed how … inviting the place looked. “It does matter, Peter.”

Talia cocked her head to one side when they entered, but Peter turned, his eyes blazing. He groaned in irritation at the interruption. 

“You know more than I do,” Stiles challenged, shaking off Scott’s and Isaac’s help. “I don’t have to tell you how dangerous this all is.”

“The mahrts are coming,” Isaac warned. “You see the storm.”

“ _You. Stupid. Children._ ” Peter snarled in exasperation. “You wretched teenagers. You’re alone. Don’t you understand the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you are squandering with your simplistic morality and your unearned overconfidence! Do you understand that necromancers with Mother’s skill are even rarer than smug True Alphas?” 

“Call us all the names you want,” Scott answered. “But just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.”

“It’s a lesson you never learned, Peter,” Talia broke in. “You also never mentioned that there were others who entered these lands with you. And you wonder why I don’t trust you.” 

Peter mastered himself; his heartbeat calmed and a smile played about his lips that never reached his eyes. Scott felt the excitement turn in his veins. This was Peter’s last attempt to get people to do what he wanted before he resorted to violence. 

“This is about family, Talia. No matter what I’ve done, I’ve always been about family. You know that – all of you know that.” Peter began.

“I think Laura might disagree.” Isaac spoke. 

“Laura was a mistake.” For once, it didn’t sound completely false to Scott’s ears. “Laura was the worst mistake I ever made.”

“Among others,” Stiles replied. “Are you going to claim you were insane? That you didn’t know what you were doing?”

“No.” Peter let out a heavy sigh. “It was a mistake. I let my anger at what had happened and my hatred of the argents overcome the duty I had to Laura as her uncle. I killed her because I forgot about family. This is me remembering that it’s the most important thing.”

“And as usual, everyone else gets to pay the price for your actions, Peter. Do you even care what could happen if you bring people back?” Scott wasn’t scolding. “I was the same, but I was stopped.”

“Then you’re a fool, Scott, but what’s new about that?” Peter shook his head. “You think – all of you – that just because you don’t do something, that it won’t be done. The world is filled with people who won’t give the consequences of their actions more than a second of thought, and yet you deny yourselves what could be because of imaginary rules people break every single day.”

The worst part about what Peter was saying was that he was completely right. Scott would never be able to stop everyone who wanted to hurt other people for their own gain. You couldn’t always prevent things like the Hale fire. You couldn’t stop all the murders. But you didn’t need to; you weren’t alone. “I don’t want to stop everyone, Peter. I just want to stop _you._ ”

Peter roared his challenge, slamming into Scott with a speed and fury that he had only demonstrated once before. Scott felt his legs fly out from under them and then the cushioned impact of his back in the snow. Claws dug into his shoulders and he felt jaws snap at his throat. Peter was fury and the power that granted him was enormous. 

Scott was stronger and faster than Peter, but he had no purchase in the snow and he couldn’t get his bearings. This was probably how Peter had killed Laura, taking her by surprise and tearing her apart before she could fight back effectively. There was a difference though; Scott wasn’t alone.

Isaac slammed into Peter’s back, driving the enraged Hale off of his alpha. They rolled around in the snow, but in this case, Isaac used his longer limbs to his advantage. He was up and on his feet before Peter could shake the snow out of his face. Scott climbed to his feet as well, only to see Stiles lay a line of mountain ash in front of the door, so Peter couldn’t make it back inside to the Hale House and the dead he wanted to resurrect. 

“There’s no point!” Scott shouted, employing the alpha voice. “You won’t be able to break the line, and you can’t beat us.” 

Peter came at him, heedless of his words. He didn’t even speak, which was a new thing for him. Scott kept on defense; he didn’t really want to hurt Peter. It wasn’t like he was still a threat; Isaac had cost the omega his advantage.

“Peter!” This alpha was not Scott. “It’s over. You can’t win.” Talia had come up to the line of mountain ash and stood beside Stiles. “No one will be going with you.”

Peter didn’t calm down but he didn’t pull in his claws. “Fools. Idiots!” He sneered. “You think I’d come all this way without getting something out of it? You can’t shut down the portal without all of us leaving; you’ll give me what I want, or I’ll let the mahrts get into the world of the living.” 

“Yes, we can,” Stiles spoke with confidence. “It just won’t go well for the people left behind. In the end, you’re in one world or the other.” 

“Peter. Go live.” Talia added her voice. At the tone, not a command, but a plea, Peter stopped for real. They shared a long look. “Or … you can stay. Be with us.”

It hadn’t occurred to Scott that this was an option for Peter. With dawning horror, he saw Peter considering it, really considering it. He’d have to be blind not to notice. And it was horror – Scott could imagine remaining behind for Allison, but he could never imagine Peter doing it. 

In the silence of the snowfall, he could hear people’s breathing. In the distance, he could hear the step of things moving through the woods. Allison had lasted as long as she could. The mahrts had won past her. Time was no longer running it out. Time had ran out.

“I could,” sighed Peter. His shoulders dropped and Scott knew what he was doing.

“No,” commanded Scott. “Stiles, don’t you dare break that line.” Everyone stared at him. “I forbid it. Because, Peter, you’re a selfish con man, you’re a fucking killer, but one thing you aren’t is a coward. You aren’t considering staying because it’s the right thing to do; you’re doing it because you’re quitting.”

Peter’s look of frustrated amazement was baffling. “Everything I really want is right here.” 

“Bullshit. This is just easy for you. Because there’s a Hale family alive that you’re a part of, but you just don’t want to put the effort to be a part of it. Are you telling me that there’s nothing out in the world you want? Or you’re just too lazy to do the work necessary to get it?” Scott was enraged. “What happened, Peter? The wolf who bit me was never like that.”

“I made you, Scott,” Peter snapped. “You didn’t make me. You don’t know me. Maybe the only thing I want left in this world is to kill you?”

“You won’t do it here!” Scott shouted back. God damn it, he wasn’t going to let Peter get away with things again. Even if that meant saving him from death. 

“Scott…” Isaac’s voice spoke with urgency; he could hear the mahrts as well. Stiles and Talia were looking at him in disbelief. 

Peter’s face went through a change, not a shift. Emotions played over it. “God damn it, you’re annoying. You’ll regret this.”

“Probably.” Scott turned to Stiles. “Get us out of here, Stiles. I know you’ve already thought of a way to do that.”

Stiles leapt over the ash. “It was nice meeting you, ma’am. I wish we had gotten a chance to talk.” He moved through the snow. “Grab ahold of each other.” 

Scott reached out and grabbed Peter’s shoulder. Peter snarled at him. “You moron!” But it was without heat. Isaac came over and grabbed Scott’s other shoulder. His eyes were on the tree line.

“Oh god,” Isaac gasped. He never described what he saw. 

“Bardo is a state of mind,” Stiles grabbed Isaac’s wrist and Peter’s wrist. “And I’ve learned how to close the door.” 

They were in the basement, empty now but for the three unconscious chimera. Scott went to Hayden and picked her up, chair and all, ripping the bolts out of the floor. There was an echo of his own roar, the summons he had used to bring down the barrier, and then all was silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only the epilogue remains!


	18. Epilogue

“I can’t believe you let him go,” said Stiles, grumpily. He leaned up against the balcony’s rails, watching the people move back and forth between him. He wasn’t really angry, but he was serious about his disappointment.

“I didn’t let him go. I punished him.” Scott replied, casually. Stiles hit him in the arm, hard for a human, but nothing really painful for him. 

They were back at Berlin Tegel, waiting in the visitor’s lounge area. Isaac and the German hunters were arranging for the chimeras’ flight back to the United States without having to explain to either German or American authorities exactly what happened to the three kidnapped teenagers. It was taking a fair amount of time, but Isaac assured them it could be done and done in a way that would put an end to the matter for once and for all. Scott was being as patient as he could be when he wasn’t helping, but it was too dangerous to risk anything connecting him back to Beacon Hills. Isaac had absolutely insisted that Stiles shouldn’t help, as Isaac assured that German airport authorities wouldn’t appreciate his sense of humor. 

“You punished him.” Stiles displayed that very same sense of humor with sarcastic echoing. “You slapped him on the wrist and let him gallivant off to wherever emotionally deep-fried psychopaths go off to. Wow. You’re such a hard ass.”

“He paid reparations,” Scott continued calmly. “He’s paying to fix everything he broke in Beacon Hills. All of the chimeras, including Noah, are getting generous payments that allow them the best type of future with a little extra for their trouble. He’s funding our research into how to shut down the Nemeton.”

“With a little extra for our trouble.” Stiles steamed. “And for a little cash, you let him run free.”

“I didn’t talk him out of committing suicide so he could spend the rest of his life in a jail cell. I didn’t drag him away from his family in order to hand him over to hunters so they could kill him,” Scott argued. 

“He’s not a good guy.” Some people might consider Scott the person who dwelt in a black-and-white world, but it was Stiles who saw things simply. 

“It doesn’t matter if he’s not a good guy. I learned one important thing from the dead; I was right not to want to kill people – any people. I know it’s going to happen -- I’m going to kill someone -- but now more than ever I’m not going to use it as a solution unless someone forces me to it. As long as Peter’s alive, there’s a possibility he can change.”

“And the people he kills before he ‘changes’?” Stiles pushed, because that was his role as Emissary.

“We don’t know if he’s going to kill anyone. He didn’t this time, did he? And _he_ was right about one thing – people are murdering other people every day, everywhere, and we can’t stop them all. That makes it even clearer that what’s important isn’t how many people we stop, but how we stop them.” Scott remembered what he had tried to do to Allison; all the good results in the world wouldn’t matter if you did it in the wrong way. “That is what’s important to me.” 

Stiles remained silent. Scott could feel the turmoil in him. Stiles was always both more practical and more vindictive than he was. Finally, he shrugged. “Yeah, it’s important to me, too.”

“We stopped him this time.” Scott promised Stiles. “And we’ll stop him next time.”

“Just no more necromancy.” It was said with humor, but there was an edge to it.

“No more necromancy.” Scott promised as well. This hadn’t been easy on him either. 

They waited in silence until Isaac returned, finished with what he had to do. “The kids are going through customs now. The story we created is complete bullshit, but everybody involved decided that it would be better than a protracted legal mess. We’re working something out with Chris’s contacts in the FBI on the other side.”

Scott sighed in relief. “What about their parents?”

“They’re getting the full run down from our people in Beacon Hills.” Isaac shrugged. It was kind of odd to Scott the way he said it. It did make them sound like spies. “There’s no way those three can avoid it this time. Some of the chimeras aren’t particularly happy …”

Scott frowned. He hated taking the choice from others. While his mother had turned into his biggest supporter, once she had been horrified and unsure of what to do. He hoped things would come out for the best.

“It’s always better when they know,” Stiles proclaimed.

Scott looked up at the sky and turned away from the railing. Not always.

“What now?” Isaac asked.

“Vacation!” Stiles shouted. Startled people looked at him from across the airport but he didn’t care. “No mind fuckery. No extortion. No returning villains. We’re going on vacation. And you, Mr. Isaac Lahey, get to choose where we go.”

Scott glanced over at Stiles, questioningly. “Shouldn’t I get to choose?” He teased.

“You wouldn’t know a good vacation spot in Europe if you fell asleep in it, Scott. Isaac’s the only one of us who really knows Europe outside of movies and such. I’ll permit him to choose our destination.”

“You’re too kind, Stilinski. But then what?” Isaac had become very practical.

“We learn how to fix the Nemeton,” Scott said. “That’s why we’re staying in Europe.”

Stiles nods. “But first, vacation!” He glanced at them both. “Yeah, I’m fixated on it. I’m tired, and I deserve to indulge myself with Peter’s money. Choose somewhere romantic, Lahey.”

Scott’s and Isaac’s eyebrows flew up in unison. 

“You two,” He gestured at them, “haven’t had a real date in months and months and months, if ever. You get to go do couples things. I get to enjoy luxury accommodations to the point of blissful oblivion. That’s my official advice.”

Scott blinked. He hadn’t thought of that. He looked again at Isaac to see him smiling. 

“When Stilinski’s right, he’s right.”

Scott had been facing surviving high school and spending time in comas and fighting and training and being the hero for a long time. He had become so used to it that he only rarely realized what was missing. And there were so many things that were missing, that he didn’t want to miss. You only get one life.

“Okay. Let’s live a little.”


End file.
